The Reluctant Veela
by Zikare
Summary: Draco has mated to the worst possible wizard, because veela prefer those who've saved their lives. If he can keep quiet, he can take his secret to the grave, preserving his family's image. Unfortunately he's on house arrest and guard Potter is poking his nose around. Harry must save Draco from himself and from the Ministry's accusations as he awaits trial. Slash, Drarry, egg-laying
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This was my submission for the Live Journal HD Cliché Fest 2014. It is a completed multi-chapter story that I haven't had time to post here until now. I figured that in honor of the snow day we are having in what I like to describe as an artic wasteland, I would post one chapter for every day I have off due to the snow. When the snow days end, I will post once a week, probably on Tuesday or Wednesdays.

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Harry's POV:

"Mum's pot roast is my favorite; I'm stuffed fuller than a bird on Christmas. Do you think Hermione can learn to cook as good as my mum?" Ron asked as we made our way through the grounds of Malfoy Manor.

"Don't know; your mum set the bar pretty high with that one," I replied, approaching the front door.

We were Junior Aurors now, Ron and I, and the job title came complete with an assignment. That assignment happened to be at Malfoy Manor, where we've been working guard duty for months now.

"Yeah, she did, didn't she?" Ron asked climbing the stairs now.

"Absolutely." We stopped at the second floor landing.

"I'll take Narcissa; you take the git?"

That was how we always split up guard duty, with me watching Draco and Ron watching Narcissa. She and Draco Malfoy were on house arrest until the Ministry could get around to scheduling their trials. Lucius Malfoy was in a cell in the Ministry's holding facilities, but those facilities were extremely crowded and I had argued that she and Draco should be granted leniency. I got my way, thanks in part to my friendship with the current Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, which meant that Ron, four other Junior Aurors, and I had guard duty at Malfoy Manor.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," I replied, walking towards Draco's room to relieve Jackson, the day guard. I was used to guarding Draco and happy to continue the arrangement for another night. Watching him really wasn't all that bad.

When I entered the room, Jackson looked up from his book and nodded at me. He had been sitting on a chair in front of Draco's bathroom door, but now he got up to stretch.

"Malfoy's sick. He's been in there all day puking and what not. I reported it to Robards and he sent back an owl saying that he'll send Nurse Prichard over tomorrow or the next day to take a look at him. But if Malfoy takes a turn for the worst, you're supposed to apparate him to the Ministry holding cells and they'll take care of him there," Auror Jackson said.

"Do you know what's wrong with him?" I asked eagerly.

It wasn't that I was eager for Draco to be sick, but that I'd been telling the other guards for months now that he was sick. There was just no other explanation for his gloomy demeanor than that there was something seriously wrong with him; at least I thought so. Depression is what Hermione thought it was. Given that his side had lost the war, Voldemort and many of his relatives were dead, and his dad was in custody awaiting trial, depression did make a fair amount of sense. Ron mostly agreed with her, but occasionally thought that Draco was up to something or just seeking attention.

I, however, couldn't believe that it was depression that was responsible, not with Draco Malfoy. We have so much in common that I couldn't fathom that a mental weakness could be what brought my boyhood rival down, not after all that he had survived. If he could succumb to depression, then that meant it could get me too. I couldn't believe that, so instead I'd been telling everyone for months that he was sick. And now he really was sick, proving me right.

"Whoa, calm down there Harry; just because he's got the stomach flu doesn't mean he's been sick all this time. He'll be fine in a few days and right back to moping about in order to get your attention," Jackson said. He and the other guards were under the impression that there was nothing wrong with Draco.

"How do you know it's the stomach flu? Have you been in there to check on him?"

"Not for hours—I've been giving him his privacy to, you know—but I did go in there and verify that he's really sick. There was a big puddle of vomit on the ground and something nasty in the toilet."

"You shouldn't go home to your family tonight. Malfoy's been sick for months, so I'm sure it's something really bad and contagious. Doxy fever maybe…" I speculated.

"It's the stomach flu, nothing more. He said his stomach hurt."

"Did you give him the potion for upset stomach?"

We didn't have very many potions that were considered safe enough to keep on hand while guarding prisoners, but a tonic to soothe upset stomachs was one of them.

"I offered it, but he said he was allergic. He took the pain potion instead," Jackson said with a shrug. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really need to be getting home. I'll decontaminate my clothing before I hug my little girl if it'll make you feel better."

I nodded and Jackson left, closing Draco's door behind him. As soon as I was alone, I knocked on the bathroom door, identified myself, and called Draco's name. When there was no response, I repeated the process. Then when there was still no response, I said, "Draco, if you don't respond or open this door right this second I'll be left with no choice but to barge in." There still was no response. "Fine, but I hope for both our sakes that you're decent."

Draco didn't respond to that either, so I spelled open the locked door. My eyes were drawn instantly to the large black lump on the bathroom floor. Adjusting to the dim light, I realized that it was Draco on the floor and the black was his bathrobe. I ran to his side, casting a spell at the flame in the wall sconce as I went, to brighten the room. Flickering shadows from the flame danced across his body; his pale face looked very sickly and drawn and I didn't think it was just the torchlight.

I checked first for a pulse and then when I found one, I checked to see if he was breathing. I couldn't tell at first, but then I noticed his chest rising up and down. I let out a sigh of relief and cupped his head in my hands. "Draco, it's Harry, are you alright?"

His eyes flickered and he let out a moan, but there was nothing that could be described as a coherent response.

"I'm going to pick you up and carry you to your bed, alright?" I asked.

He didn't respond to that, so I took it as permission to go ahead with my plan. I didn't think I would be able to carry him, both because he was taller than me and because he'd put on a lot of weight lately; the weight gain was one of the factors that had Hermione convinced that he was depressed. Thus I levitated him with a simple first year spell. As his body rose up into the air, a heavy white object rolled out of his grip and hit the ground with a loud thump. I looked down to see a large egg rolling away, towards the wall.

The egg was smaller than a dragon's egg, but larger than most other animal eggs. It was big, but not huge. I figured it was an ostrich egg or something and wondered where it came from as I picked it up. But then the silver embellishments caught the firelight and I realized that this was a decorated egg. It was warm to my touch, but that was probably because Draco had been cradling it and warming it with his body heat. It was a weird object to clutch for comfort, but I was sure he had a reason for it; it was bound to be a super expensive hand-painted egg-shaped piece of granite given to him by his mother or something; it was certainly heavy enough to be solid stone.

Weird egg or no, Draco still needed to be put to bed, so I guided his floating body through the doorway, into the next room, and released the charm only when he was directly over his huge four poster bed. I tucked him in and set the egg by his side, before summoning his towel from the loo. He may be asleep, but there was no reason to believe he was better and since I didn't want to clean puke off of his bed, I carefully tucked the towel under his head. The Malfoys weren't allowed elves in their rooms or wands, so the other guards and I were responsible for cleaning up after our prisoners.

Once I was satisfied that he was all set in his bed, I went back to the bathroom to clean up. The toilet needed to be flushed and was the source of the vile odor. Jackson must have cleaned the floor, because besides a reddish brown washcloth lying near the claw-foot tub, it was spotless. I vanished the washrag downstairs to the laundry hamper, where the elves would take care of it. Our job wasn't entirely elf free, because the Malfoy elves were still allowed to clean anything left for them on the ground floor; it was just Draco and Narcissa's rooms that the elves were banned from.

With that taken care of, I sat down on a chair in Draco's bedroom and pulled out the book I was reading. He tended to be one of those people who slept peacefully through the night, which made nightshifts very boring for me. As a guard, I wasn't allowed to go to sleep and I found that the only way I could stay awake was to read. I wasn't always on the nightshift and was far more used to taking the dayshift. Harper and Culver, the Junior Aurors who were usually on night shift, were off on vacation for the week. That meant that we were only dividing the day into two shifts instead of three and that Ron and I were on night duty. Luckily I had managed to get in a fair bit of sleep today, so I wasn't dead on my feet. Still, by sunrise, I was yawning and trying to keep my eyes open.

It was mid-August and as such, the sun rose very early in the morning here in Wiltshire. Draco had two sets of curtains on his windows, but since he hadn't closed the heavy curtains for bed, only the sheer daytime set was drawn. The weak morning rays lit up the room and allowed me to see him in proper lighting. I hadn't noticed it before, but there were definitely dried tear tracks running down his face. I didn't want Narcissa to come in and see him like that, so I summoned a washcloth from the loo, wet it, and washed his face for him.

He stirred and moaned when he felt the touch of the warm rag. He reached up and caught hold of my hand, stopping my progress, but then seemed to remember his fancy egg. His pale fingers grasped the large egg and pulled it tightly to his stomach. Something looked off about the way the egg rested against his stomach. I finished his face, before gently pushing the black fabric of his bathrobe aside. He was wearing black silk pajamas underneath, but he was most definitely thinner than he had been. I hadn't seen him walking around this last week, because I'd been working the night shift and he was asleep most of it, but I was positive that last week he had been growing fat and these pajamas had been tight. Maybe I was wrong, but I could've sworn that he was still fat yesterday morning, before my last shift ended. Now however, he wasn't thin exactly, but he was several inches thinner.

He was moaning in his bed, eyes closed and turning from side to side, but keeping the stone egg clutched to his chest. I figured he was still in pain and offered him a pain potion. He nodded, so I summoned a vial of the stuff and helped him sit up to drink it.

"How'd I get here?" he asked when he'd drunk the potion. His eyes were still closed and his voice sounded very groggy.

"I found you sleeping in the loo and moved you to your bed," I answered.

"Thanks," he replied, and lay back down, clearly intending to go back to sleep.

"Did you pass out in there or something?"

His only response was to nod, but I distinctly saw glistening at the corner of his eye. Great, he was going to start crying again and then Narcissa would think I'd done something to him. I owed her and Draco both a life debt; her for lying to Voldemort in the forest and him for lying to his family on Easter. The life debt I owed him canceled out with the two life debts he owed me from the final battle, but the life debt I owed her stood. That was a big part of why I had gotten them put on house arrest, instead of letting them await their trials in the holding cells like everyone else. That was also why I felt I had to do a decent job taking care of her son while on guard duty; he was clearly all she cared about in the world and I didn't want to disappoint her.

That was also why I'd initially chosen to watch Draco instead of letting Ron do it, because I knew Ron was still too angry at Draco to do a good job watching him. Ron was definitely of the opinion that Draco should be grateful that he was only under house arrest and not expect the guards to clean up after him. Narcissa did a reasonable job cleaning up after herself, which was why Ron liked watching her. That and she liked to tell embarrassing stories about things Draco had done when he was very little.

Draco's breathing evened out and I went back to my chair to read. It was hours more before Narcissa woke up and she and Ron and came in. She knew immediately that there was something wrong with her son and let out a loud pitiful wail as she ran to him. She climbed into his bed and pulled him into her lap. He stirred, moaned, and then seemed to settle into her lap and go back to sleep.

"What happened to Malfoy?" Ron asked me, leaning against the doorjamb.

"Jackson said he was sick all yesterday. He's been asleep almost the entire time since I've been on duty," I answered, trying to keep the smug look off of my face.

"Come off it; just because he's sick now doesn't mean he's been sick all this time."

I walked over to Ron and leaned up against the wall next to him, to reduce the odds of our conversation being overheard. "Doesn't mean he's been well all this time either."

Ron grunted and nodded. "Don't suppose this means we'll be getting breakfast anytime soon."

"Doesn't look like it," I confirmed.

"Narcissa doesn't seem to be interested in anything other than her little dragon, does she?"

"Nope. Bit strange really."

"How so? My mum is always all over me when I'm sick," Ron replied.

"Yeah, but she hasn't asked what's wrong with him or how long he's been sick. It's like she already knows," I whispered.

"You think this is a ploy to cover an escape attempt?" Ron whispered back.

"No, I think he's been sick all along and she knows what's wrong."

Ron groaned and whispered, "Not this again."

"Yes this again. There's something seriously wrong with him."

"The only thing wrong with him is that he's cuddling a giant painted egg."

"Maybe she gave it to him or something," I said with a shrug of my shoulders. "So how was watching her last night?"

"Fine; she was painting again."

Narcissa was a bit of an artist, so that gave me an idea. "Hey, you don't think she painted the egg, do you?"

"Yeah, probably. If they really aren't going to eat breakfast, I hope Jackson and Pollock get here soon to relieve us."

I nodded my agreement, because my stomach was rumbling too, but knowing it was hours yet until our end of shift. Breakfast at the Burrow would be over by then, but Mrs. Weasley would fire up the frying pan for us; she never let anyone go hungry.

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Author's Note: Please Review! I know I posted it once before on another sight, but Live Journal doesn't work right for me, so I couldn't access my reviews :( I would love to hear what you think of this story!


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I should probably mention that this entire story was betaed by the fabulous edelau!

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It wasn't until the early morning hours the next day that Nurse Pritchard was able to come out and examine Draco. And by the next day, I don't mean the morning after he first got sick, but the day after that. By the time she came, I was fairly certain he was on the mend. He hadn't gotten out of bed other than to use the loo, but he was no longer vomiting. I thought the diarrhea was gone too, but I wasn't monitoring him in that regard. It was frustrating that the Ministry Nurse couldn't make it out until after Draco was already getting better, but I was still eager to find out what the problem was. After all, it was possible that this was just the first attack and that he'd get worse again.

Nurse Pritchard was in Draco's room now, examining him, while I was pacing in the hallway in front of his closed door, waiting for her to come out. It felt like I was waiting forever, but then the grey haired dour-faced nurse finally came out, closing the door behind her.

"Well, what is it? What's wrong with him?" I asked impatiently. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn't find out right now.

"First of all, I want you and the other guards to know that Mr. Malfoy is not contagious," Nurse Pritchard began.

"Because he's getting better now."

"No, he never was contagious; this is a genetic condition, not an infection."

"What's wrong with him?" I asked in disbelief. He was always so healthy when we were at school together. Yes, I'd been convinced for a while now that he was sick, but I thought it was something contagious or cancer even.

"This isn't my area of expertise, but I've determine that he's a veela."

"A veela? He can't be a veela; his parents are human."

"He admitted that his parents both have veela in their very distance histories. He doesn't seem to have any of the veela allure—you don't need to worry about that—it seems to have been diluted down to nothing by the human blood."

"But if his parents are only a small bit veela and he doesn't have the allure, what else is there? Feathers or something? And how would that make him sick?"

"I don't know the specifics—you'll have to talk to a specialist about this—but I do know that it's possible for two hybrid veela to produce a child with the veela sexual characteristics, which is what Mr. Malfoy has."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes; I confirmed it with my own eyes."

"Right, he's a veela, so how'd that make him sick?"

"He's not sick; not really. He had a miscarriage. That egg he's holding was a baby, but something happened to trigger a miscarriage. I imagine it had something to do with not having his mate around. Veelas need their mate to maintain their health. Without their mate they'll eventually waste away and die, which is why he hasn't been eating properly."

"The egg is his baby? Are you sure it's not still alive? It was warm!" I exclaimed, remembering the feel of the heavy egg in my hands from when I had moved it from the bathroom to the bed.

"It's definitely dead. I'm no expert, but that egg is dead."

"How do you know? Is it something I did wrong? I should've sat on it or something!" Alright, so I was grasping at straws here, but Draco was my ward and he'd had a miscarriage on my watch, without me even realizing it. And why hadn't he said anything? All he'd done was cry and mope around his bed.

"No, there is nothing you could've done. That egg has been dead for some time."

"How do you know?"

"Because that shell is fully formed, yet that egg is entirely too small to contain a newborn human baby. The shell doesn't form until the baby stops growing. The fact that the baby stopped growing so small and then the shell had time to completely mature before it came out means that that egg was dead for a week or more. Don't beat yourself up over this; these things happen, especially when veela are deprived from their mates. He never said anything, so there was nothing that could've been done for him."

"But still, I should've known…" I had known something was wrong, but I'd never have guessed that this was the problem…to think that Draco was pregnant all along…

"You couldn't kn-" she started to say, but I cut her off.

"Wait! Draco's a wizard! How is it that he was pregnant? How can a _guy_ have a miscarriage?"

"Veela sexes are very difficult to differentiate, because they look the same on the outside, except for their wings. The wings don't come in until puberty, so before then parents typically go by the smell of the allure. Male veela smell one way and female another, but Mr. Malfoy doesn't have a smell. I performed a chromosome test on him and that came back male; again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know what that means, because he's definitely a female veela. Given that he laid an egg and that he has wings when only the females have wings, I would say he is absolutely female."

"Then why does he look like a boy? Why was he in the boy's dorm at school?"

"Like I said, wings don't appear until puberty. Up until he got his wings, his parents had no way of determining his sex, besides the chromosome test. That test comes back male. Maybe the veela specialist would be able to tell, but from what Mr. Malfoy said, his parents were trying to keep his condition a secret and never took him to a specialist. Instead they consulted their family doctor, who performed a series of psychological tests. The tests indicated that he was a male, so they raised him as a boy and hid his condition."

"But then why does he _look_ like a guy? I've seen his chest; he's completely flat; no boobs at all and his waist is straight, not at all curvy." At least it was before he put on the weight; I wasn't entirely sure what it looked like now.

"I don't know, other than the fact that chromosomally he appears to be a human male and he isn't a full veela. I don't know the specifics on how veela sex is determined, but it's completely different than with humans. Maybe Mr. Malfoy is a male human and at the same time, a female veela," Nurse Pritchard said.

That was a lot of information to wrap my head around and it seemed the nurse was out of information.

"I'll file my report and see to it that all of the other guards and your boss get copies. I'll request for a specialist to come out and take a look at him, but that might take a month or more. For now just watch him and make him eat more. Also, try to get him to tell you who his mate is; he wouldn't tell me and veelas are extremely sensitive to their mates. They need their mates around and without them, they feel rejected. If a veela is rejected, it'll waste away and die."

I nodded, my head still spinning with all of the information. Nurse Pritchard clapped me on the shoulder, before seeing herself out.

I was lost in thought for some unknown period of time, before I gathered my thoughts, schooled them into line, and decided it was time to check on Draco. He was lying in his bed, still wearing his blue silk pajamas from last night, and crying. His snuffles were quiet and infrequent, but I could see the glistening tracks down his face. He'd been crying a lot lately, but now that I knew the reason why, it seemed understandable. Anyone would cry after losing a baby; it wasn't even my baby and I was nearly in tears from watching his heartbreak.

As an Auror, I was supposed to be guarding Draco, not comforting him, but I was the only one around right now and I decided I could do both. Narcissa and Ron were both upstairs, but it was hours before breakfast time and I had no illusions that Nurse Pritchard had bothered introducing herself to the other prisoner in the house. Thus Narcissa was most likely still fast asleep, leaving me as the only one available to comfort her son. I crawled onto the giant bed and pulled him into my arms.

"I had no idea it was a baby; I'm so sorry," I murmured into his ear, wrapping one arm under his arm and around his chest, while resting the other hand on the egg. I had been so certain that this egg was merely a painted stone, but now that I knew it was a veela egg, it seemed absolutely incredible. To think that something so wonderful and so foreign came out of his body, covered in those intricate silver patterns.

"It wasn't a baby," he replied thickly, leaning into my embrace.

"The nurse told me that you're a veela and that this was a real veela egg."

"It's a real egg, but there was never a baby inside. I never had a chance to fertilize it; that's why it didn't develop."

"Wait, if it wasn't fertilized, then…uh…I don't get it," I said, feeling very confused.

"I was with my mate and my body recognized him. It started preparing for the fertilization by making the egg, but fertilization never came. I've been stuck on house arrest instead."

"Who _is_ your mate, Draco?" I asked, but he didn't answer. "Come on, you need to tell me. If I know who it is, I can talk to Robards about granting visitation. If he's a Death Eater, maybe you'll be better off staying in the holding cells with him."

"He's not a Death Eater."

"Then who _is_ he?" I asked.

He didn't answer that question either. Instead he shook his head and was clearly having increasing difficulty holding back his sobs. Obviously he didn't want to talk about it. Maybe his mate had rejected him; I remembered the nurse saying something about rejection being lethal in veelas, so I decided to try to ease his fears.

"Look, I'm sure that whoever he is he'll love you. Circumstances interfered to keep you two apart, but this will all be over soon. Once we get your name cleared, you'll be free to woo that mate of yours," I said.

He looked up to me with wide, trusting eyes. His eyes were such a clear grey color that I couldn't imagine someone rejecting him; whoever his mate was, surely must love him.

"He wouldn't want me. I don't even have any allure; what kind of veela doesn't have allure?"

"That just makes you normal; more human," I offered.

He scoffed at that. "I couldn't be less normal. Look at me; I'm a girl veela and a boy human. No one is going to want me."

"That's not true. I'd jump at the chance to have a boyfriend who could carry children. The most disappointing thing about realizing I'm gay is that I'll never have a child of my own. I've always wanted a family."

Now that the war was over, I had time to think about the future and for self-discovery. In the days after the final battle, Ginny admitted having a crush on Dennis Creevey. I was gone and she'd tried her best to wait for me, but Dennis and Collin had been there with her at Hogwarts. They were all part of Dumbledore's army together, working to keep the younger students safe from the Carrows. They had bonded and now that Collin was dead, she felt the urge to go to Dennis and comfort him. That comfort turned physical and we broke up almost as soon as we'd gotten back together.

My break up with Ginny was for the best, because it led me to discover my sexuality. Turns out I really am not all that interested in girls. In my despair over loosing Ginny, I accidentally walked into the wrong, or oh so very right, type of muggle club. Half naked men had hit on me, asked me to dance, and there was some very hot snogging too. Of course I'd already been very drunk from a series of shots I'd thrown back at the previous club, the one I'd left because none of the girls hitting on me were my type, due to all the boobs. The alcohol lowered my inhibitions and by the time I'd sobered up in the morning, I had to admit to myself that I was gay.  
I found the idea of having a long term boyfriend very desirable, but there was the drawback of not being able to produce children. Draco had the best of both worlds, because he could have the gay relationship _and_ the biological children. Sure laying eggs was weird, but this was the wizarding world and laying eggs was not the_ weirdest_ thing I'd encountered so far. Cutting off part of your soul and shoving it inside a giant snake, that was weird; laying eggs was comparatively normal.

"Really? You'd want that?"

"Yeah, of course. And you're a fit bloke, so I'm sure he'll want you."

Well he was fit before; he was a bit pudgy now, but miscarriages did that to veelas. The rest of him was so thin that he'd probably bounce right back and look fit again soon.

He nodded and said, "I didn't know you were gay."

"I didn't figure it out myself until recently. I didn't know you were either."

"I've known all along."

"Did you know that you were…ah?"

"A veela?"

"No, um, er…"

"A girl veela?"

"Yeah."

"No, not until recently. Not until I got really angry at Pansy and Greg and wings shot out of my back and a beak popped out of my face."

"Sounds rough."

He nodded. "Please don't tell anyone. I don't want anyone to know that I'm a veela."

I was torn between instantly agreeing, because I felt sorry for him, and refusing, because I _had_ to tell Hermione. "I have to tell the other Aurors."

"Only the ones guarding me."

"My boss has to know."

"Alright, but no one else."

I was about to refuse, because I _really_ wanted to tell Hermione, but then the rules of proper Auror conduct popped into my head. "Fine; we're not supposed to tell any personal secrets we learn on the job anyway," I conceded.

"Thank you."

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Author's Note: There is no telling when it will start snowing again, but when it does, look for another update. Until then, you can expect the next chapter to be up either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Please Review!


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: It's snowing and for once the schools around here canceled school with plenty of warning. Thus I have another chapter for you all. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far; please keep them coming!

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It was over a month before a veela specialist, Healer Balev, from Bulgaria was able to portkey in to look at Draco. He was a portly balding man with a large mustache who reminded me of Uncle Vernon, except with a much more pleasant disposition and a wand. He was _not_ the type of wizard I thought of when I thought of a veela specialist. Veela were tall, elegant, and graceful and this man was not. But he was nice, kind, and apparently highly knowledgeable regarding veela. I was glad he was finally here to look at Draco and answer all of my questions.

Draco had been doing better since the egg incident. Culver and Harper were back from their vacation, so I'd gone back to my usual afternoon/evening eight hour shifts. That meant I was once again the man on duty during tea and supper time. At first I'd taken nursing Draco back to health a little too seriously. After the miscarriage all of the weight he'd put on fell right off and he started looking like he was starving to death. My solution was to encourage him to eat and the first night I took it too far. He'd eaten too much and ended up puking during Harper's shift. Since then I'd scaled my efforts back and the incident hadn't been repeated. Who knew that Draco Malfoy was so susceptible to suggestion?

As I paced back and forth, I really hoped that Healer Balev would recognize what good care I'd been giving Draco. It wasn't all progress and I'm not just talking about the little overfeeding incident, but overall he was doing better now. There had been a few times when I'd gotten upset and said negative things, not paying attention to how it would affect him. Turns out that veela are sensitive to all forms of rejection and I'd noticed that his hands tended to tremble whenever I was upset with him. But once I'd figured that out and started watching what I was saying around him, his condition had improved.

The healer was supposed to arrive this morning to examine Draco, but he'd gotten hung up at the Ministry for _hours_. That worked out to my advantage, because it meant that he was here now, during my shift, instead of this morning during Jackson's shift. Jackson wasn't nearly as interested in Draco's health as I was; he was happy to let Draco mope around all day and not eat a thing. And Draco slept through Harper's shift, so often it felt like Narcissa and I were the only two people who cared whether Draco got better or not.

The disadvantage to the healer coming during my shift was the wait. I had nothing to do except pace back and forth along the hallway. Finally, after what felt like hours, Healer Belav came out to talk to me.

"Well, how is he?" I asked eagerly.

"Hanging in there, but if he ofulates again vithout mating he'll be in big trouble," Belav said in a thick accent. "His body has healed from the delifery. I vouldn't recommend a home birth vithout proper medical treatment, but luckily the egg vas small enough to pass through vithout tearing."

"So he's alright then?"

"Not entirely. His body takes the lack of fertilization as rejection. If he's rejected by his mate again, the damage may vell be permanent."

"And he'll die?"

"Not immediately, but yes, slowly he vill die."

"What if he…you know…starts making an egg again without his mate here?"

"He vill not go into ofulation vithout his mate present. The presence of a mate is critical to triggering egg production in feela."

"Oh…good. Then that won't happen again. I wonder who his mate is…"

"You can narrow down vho the mate is by vhen he vent into ofulation; a feela always ofulates vithin the first six months of contact. Forming a child is fery important for sealing the mate bond. I think his mate might be one of the guards, because he doesn't show signs of mate deprifation. He has nefer copulated with his mate, but I think he is close by."

"No, I really don't think that's possible. Both Harper and Jackson are married."

"Nefer-the-less, you should keep an eye out for signs that he is going into ofulation again."

"Which are?"

"Moodiness and veight-gain."

"Alright," I said, thinking that Draco was always a bit on the moody side, but I could watch for the weight-gain easily enough. Then a disturbing thought occurred to me. "Is he going to ovulate and make more eggs after this first one?" I was picturing Draco with a dozen little hatchlings, like a mother hen. He would hate it if he turned into Mrs. Weasley.

"Once the mate bond is sealed vith the first child, ofulation can be suppressed vith potions. It can be suppressed now, but that vould only trigger the vasting avay. If he's in contact vith his mate, they need to consummate the relationship vith a child to ensure his health."

"Okay… Um, can you explain how it's possible that he looks like a bloke, but lays eggs?" This was my number one question and the thing I most wanted to know about the situation.

"It has to do vith genetics. Sex in feelas is determined differently than it is in humans. Do you know about the human sex chromosomes, X and Y?"

I had a small amount of sex-ed back in muggle school when I was ten, so I replied, "Vaguely."

"Vell in humans, ve hafe an X chromosome and a Y chromosome, or at least males do. Females hafe two X chromosomes. In feela, they hafe Z and W chromosomes instead. Males hafe two Zs, vile females hafe one of each. If Mr. Malfoy was entirely feela, he vould be entirely female. But since he is mostly human and has only the feela sex chromosomes, his secondary sex characteristics are human and male."

"And how, exactly, do veela have sex, if both of their sexes look the same down there?" I hadn't been able to find the answer to this question in a book. Granted I didn't like to read that much and Hermione refused to look it up for me, but still, this information was impossible to find. I've found about a dozen books with diagrams of the veela sex organ, which in both cases was a weird knobby thing, but no mention on how two knobby things were brought together in coitus.

"The same vay all birds do it."

"Right." I knew even less about bird sex, but I was too embarrassed to ask again. At least his explanation on how Draco was both a girl and a boy at the same time made sense.

"You need to make efery effort to find out vho his mate is. It vill be someone he is drawn to; if you see his head turning and his eyes consistently following one specific person or if someone says something negatife to him and he starts trembling, then that is likely his mate."

"No, he's really sensitive to rejection from everyone. Last week I accidentally said that his Quidditch team is rubbish and he started shaking."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, that sort of thing has happened several times now."

"Then perhaps it is you vho is his mate."

"No, I couldn't be."

"It is not normal for a feela to show the negatife effects of rejection from anyone other than a mate."

"Yeah, but he just had the miscarriage; he's more sensitive right now."

"Perhaps or perhaps not. It could be that you are fery close to his mate and he sees rejection by you as tantamount to rejection by him."

"Maybe…he did say his mate wasn't a Death Eater."

"Good, you vill keep an eye on him and figure out vho his mate is. If he goes into ofulation again or if he starts vasting avay, contact me. Other than that, he should be fine."

"Um, one more thing."

"Yes Auror Potter?"

"The egg, is that normal for girl veela?"

"Full female feela do lay eggs like that one, yes. The only difference is that one is much too small to contain a healthy feela embryo."

"So how does that work exactly? Does the egg stay inside him for nine months or does he sit on it for months?"

"The egg takes three months to form vithin his body, before it is full size. The embryo inside the egg is much smaller and takes another year to hatch. The feela baby comes out much more defeloped than a human baby, but then it has to eat solid food from the beginning, so it vould hafe to be more defeloped."

"Solid food? No milk?"

"Nein, feela do not make milk; their babies come out eating soft foods and sitting up."

"Okay…that's weird."

"It's the nature of a bird. It's getting late; I'm afraid I must be getting home."

"Right… But how do veela pick their mate? Is it someone he's dated or is it someone predetermined since birth?" I asked, hoping to get some clues to help me with my task.

"Neither. A feela choses its mate around the time of puberty, but not consciously. For a female feela, it is normally someone she sees as a good profider vho vill be able to acquire adequate food and protect her and her eggs. Often it is someone vho has shown interest or has vhooed her, but if no one has done so, it is often a strapping young man. Oh, and this doesn't happen often, but if someone safes a female feela's life, she'll almost assuredly pick him, efen if he is already married or an inappropriate mate-choice for some other reason."

"So, if say I were to have rescued Draco from a burning room by pulling him onto my broom during the war?" I asked hesitantly.

"Then he vould pick you. Did that happen? You are probably his mate."

"Yeah, but my friend Ron saved him too! Oh wait, no, Ron punched him after I stunned Draco's attacker. But that was the final battle of the war; I saved tons of people that night! Some say that I saved all of wizarding Britain when I killed Voldemort."

"Vere any of the others feela?"  
"No, not that I know of…"

"Good, then you vill only hafe the one feela permanently bonded to you. You safed him tvice and you thought his mate could be anyone else? How daft are you son?"

I didn't answer that one. My mouth was busy hanging open and the healer's words were echoing in my head, so no answer came.

"If that is all, I hafe to be going," he said.

I couldn't think of any more questions, so I let Healer Balev go. I went back to Draco's room, where he was sitting on his bed reading a book, and resumed my watch. At least I tried to act like I was watching Draco, but really I couldn't stop thinking about the information I'd just found out; not the fact that I was probably his mate, because I couldn't process that, but the other things. I couldn't help thinking of a little newborn human hatching out of a silver painted egg. And then it occurred to me that I needed to picture a larger baby hatching out of the egg. Balev said that the babies were old enough to sit up and eat mashed foods…that combined with the fact that the entire veela pregnancy lasted six months longer than human pregnancy meant that I should probably be picturing a six month old human hatching out of the human egg. I imagined it would be a pointy blond haired grey eyed Malfoy baby, whose nose was sharp enough to crack the egg.

In the days that followed I would have to tell my boss about the possibility that I was Draco's mate. I would even have to confront Draco and find out if I really was his mate. But before any of that could happen, I would have to admit the possibility to myself and contemplate what that would mean for me and for him. There might even be a green eyed egg baby in my future, but for now, I was busy trying to process the simpler information; the rest of it would have to wait. Maybe I could get Hermione involved. I had promised Draco I wouldn't tell her and it was September now, so she was back at Hogwarts, but I _really_ needed to talk to her. I couldn't turn to Ron about something like this.

* * *

Author's Note: So now Harry knows and the veela backstory is out of the way. I'll be skipping ahead quickly in this story, so Lucius' trial will start next chapter. Snow is predicted for Thursday, so maybe the next chapter will be up then. Please Review!


	4. Chapter 4

When I finally got around to confronting Draco and asking if I was his mate, he denied it. He had the nerve to be indignant that I would even think that and asked if I fancied myself in love with him. Flabbergasted that he would accuse me of such a thing, I walked out, leaving only Ron to babysit the Malfoys. Well our shift for the day was almost over, so Ron wasn't stuck watching them on his own for very long before Harper and Culver showed up to take over, but head Auror Robards was still mad at me for leaving my post.

Consequently Ron and I had been reassigned and I hadn't seen the Malfoys since. That however, was going to change today. Today was the start of Lucius' trial and Draco and Narcissa were being brought in to testify. Ron and I were testifying too, so I put on my best crimson Auror robes and had a go at my hair with a comb, which didn't go well.

"Looks like you've got a dead beaver on your head; can we go already?" Ron asked petulantly, tired of waiting on me.

"A beaver!?" I asked horrified, combing faster.

"That's not helping; best stop before it comes to life and a real beaver tries to mate"—I groaned at the word mate—"with your hair. Why you so concerned about your appearance anyway? It's just court."

"Just court? It's an open trial; the papers will be there."

"And since when have you cared two farts about the papers?" Ron asked and I didn't reply. "Wait, I know what this is about; it's Malfoy, isn't it? He said you aren't his mate but you've got your obsession with him and want to look good. Shite! Hermione was right; you _do_ have a crush!"

"Do not," I defended myself, putting down the comb to prove it.

"Sure you don't."

"I don't."

"Fine, then let's go."

"Fine."

And so we left, flooing into the atrium of the Ministry before making our way to the courtroom, with my hair looking like a furry rodent had crawled onto my head and died. Harper and Culver were already there with Draco and Narcissa. Draco looked up and we made eye contact when I walked in, but he quickly averted his eyes, looking down at his shoes. Well two could play at that game; if he was going to ignore me, then I was going to ignore him right back. I turned my attention to MacDougall, the photographer that was trying to get me to pose. I hate press, but I was trying to get back at Draco for ignoring me, so I actually agreed to a photo and a few comments for his partner Baudoin, the journalist. Baudoin wasn't nearly as awful as Skeeter and printed mostly fact, so I didn't mind helping him out with his story.

Baudoin got to talking my ear off and I was glad when the three Warlocks that were overseeing the trial rose to their feet and called everyone to attention. I was already standing, but I looked now for Ron, who had saved me a seat in the fourth isle back. Then because I couldn't help it, my eyes drifted to Draco and I was shocked. He was fat again. How in Merlin's name was he fat again and no one bothered to tell me? If he was fat then he was ovulating. If he ovulated again and the egg didn't get fertilized, his inner veela would consider it a rejection and he'd eventually die.

The head Warlock told us to take our seats. I rushed towards my seat next to Ron, getting there only minutes after the Warlock had started on the rules of court. I'd been to enough of these things in the months since the war that I didn't need to listen now. Instead my focus was on Draco. Was I Draco's mate or was it someone else? How long had it been since I'd seen him? Had it already been so long that it wasn't possible for my presence to have caused this? That would mean I wasn't his mate…wait no, it'd only been a month since our fight and my reassignment. It was definitely possible that it was me and he just hadn't said anything.

Next I thought about whether or not it was too late to save him. If it really was me and he was ovulating for the second time without mating, then was there still time to consummate the mate bond, fertilize the egg, and save his life? Or would this lead to another dead egg and his death? Was he really so dense as to not say anything, when he knew this would mean his life? Surely not, which would mean that I'm not his mate. There was probably someone else and he'd already said something; he had to be pregnant by someone else.

But wait, this was Draco Malfoy and the Draco Malfoy I knew was certainly capable of taking the secret of who his veela mate was to the grave. This was the wizard who had given birth to an egg in his bathroom without letting on what was happening. Even after the other Aurors and I knew the truth that he was a veela, he still refused to talk about it. He'd probably waste away without telling anyone; not even his mother could get him to tell her who his mate was.

Lucius' trial got underway and I tried to tear my eyes away from Draco and concentrate on the task at hand, I really did. I wanted Lucius to pay for all of the horrible things he'd done over the years. This man was loyal to Voldemort, had let evil incarnate live in his house, had financed the Death Eater movement, almost gotten his only son killed in the process, and that wasn't even mentioning what he did to Ginny when he gave her that diary. She could've died and he would've been pleased.

Lucius Malfoy was the type of man who deserved to pay for his crimes. He had no redeeming value what-so-ever…at least that's what I thought until Draco got on the stand. Draco painted a completely different picture of Lucius; he was a good father and a good husband who had protected his wife and son through the war. He gave charity to single mothers and orphans. He hadn't known half of what Voldemort was planning and had tried to stop it towards the end, but it was already too late.

I wasn't so sure I believed Draco's testimony completely, but it did get me thinking. Maybe, just maybe Lucius Malfoy wasn't all bad. Maybe the proper thing to do was to argue for leniency. If I wanted to be Draco's mate and the father of his eggs—and I did want that, which my subconscious regularly made blatantly clear with erotic dreams staring Draco—then Lucius would be the only living grandfather those eggs have. The last time I had confronted Draco, it hadn't gone too well. But maybe if I made an effort first and put in a good word for his father, then Draco might be willing to admit that I was his mate. And maybe those eggs would be better off if their grandfather wasn't in Azkaban for life; maybe house arrest would be a better punishment.

That was what was going through my mind when I was called to the stand to testify. I didn't lie and the first couple of hours were filled with recounting the facts of the situation. Lucius had been present in the cemetery the night Voldemort regained a body. Lucius had the dark mark and had sworn that he was loyal to Voldemort. Lucius had been there at the Ministry of Magic the night Sirius died. Lucius had attacked me and my friends. But Lucius had not fought in the final battle, instead he was interested only in finding his son. And Lucius had not fought when they brought him into custody.

Then at the end, when the prosecutor asked me what I thought should happen to Lucius Malfoy, I answered, "I think he should be given house arrest for his crimes. I have every confidence that Draco and Narcissa Malfoy will be cleared of all charges soon and they are top on my list to watch him."

Gasps filled the courtroom and a flashbulb went off, commemorating the moment, despite the rules of the court stating that photography wasn't permitted during the trial.

"Order! Order in the court! Bailiff, get that photographer out of my court," one of the Warlocks cried over the din.

Order was restored and the prosecutor asked again, "Are you certain, Auror Potter, that after everything Lucius Malfoy did that you think it would be best to let him go?"

"Yes, I am. He has learned from his mistake and seen the errors in his ways; he changed sides before the end. Besides, I'm not saying to let him off free and clear, only that he should be bound to Malfoy Manor where his wife and son will see to it that he doesn't get into trouble," I replied, looking only at Draco.

Draco's mouth was hanging open in surprise. I hoped that it was a good surprise.

Lucius' attorney was up next on the cross examination, trying to make Lucius' crimes seem less severe or completely rationalize it all.

"What do you, Auror Potter, think Voldemort would have done to Lord Malfoy had he not insisted that he was loyal to the Dark Lord Voldemort in that grave yard?" he asked.

"Probably Avada Kedavra," I answered.

The other questions went similarly, with Lucius' attorney asking what would have happened if Lucius hadn't gone along with Voldemort and I answered truthfully, that Lucius, Narcissa, and or Draco would've been killed a thousand times over; tortured too. Then it was the prosecutor's turn again and he argued that Lucius didn't have to rejoin Voldemort and that he and the Malfoy family could've run.

To that I replied, "Regulus Black ran and look where that got him. No one stops being a Death Eater without Him killing them. Lucius was already in Voldemort's inner circle from the first war, so after Voldemort came back, he had no choice but to show up to protect his family."

The prosecutor gave me a very dirty look then, but I only looked at him for a second before I locked eyes with Draco. Draco had a gigantic smile plastered across his face and it was so beautiful that I missed the prosecutor dismissing me the first time.

"You can get down now Auror Potter," he repeated.

"Er, yes," I agreed and retook my seat next to Ron as Narcissa Malfoy was called to the stand.

"What did you say all that for? You'll probably get him off scot-free!" Ron hissed quietly.

"It was worth it," I replied, recalling the look on Draco's face. And just then, Draco turned around and looked at me. I acknowledged his glance with a nod and he turned back around.

"Malfoy! You did that all to get in a veela's pants? I thought he didn't have any allure!?"

"Silence in the court," the Warlock said, meaning Ron.

"Come on, you're not likely to be up today," I whispered, getting up and inching towards the door.

Once we were out in the hall with the door closed behind us, Ron grabbed my shoulders and pushed me against the wall. "Are you daft? You just practically said that yeah, Lucius Malfoy killed and tortured people in Voldemort's name, but hey that's fine, because his son is hot."

I couldn't help it; I laughed.

"I'm serious!"

"I know Ron. Come on; it's already four and Narcissa just barely took the stand, so you won't be called today; let's go home and discuss this."

"Only if you'll promise to explain when we get there."

"Yes, fine, I promise," I said, raising my hands in submission.

And so we made our way back through the Ministry and flooed to the Burrow, where I'd been staying since the war. I had no desire to move in to Grimmauld Place, the Weasleys had offered me a place to stay, and I'd been living here ever since.

Molly came bustling out of the kitchen and asked, "How was court boys?"

"Fine, if you think Harry getting Malfoy Senior off a good thing," Ron answered.

"Harry?" Molly asked concerned.

"Yes Harry, do explain," Ron added.

"He's ovulating again!"

"Lucius?" Ron asked, still a bit slow on the uptake at times.

"No, Draco. I'm sure it's me. I'm sure I'm his mate, but he won't admit it. He'd rather die than be mated to Harry Potter," I explained.

"You couldn't let him die dear," Molly said understandably.

"Yeah, because if he did then you'd never get in his veela pants," Ron said and my face went red.

"Ron!" Molly exclaimed.

"Well it's true, Mum!" Ron replied.

"And so was everything I said. I just got to thinking that maybe the reason Draco can't stand the thought of being mated to me is that I've no compassion for his family and what they went through during the war. After listening to his testimony, I started thinking that Lucius really didn't have much of a choice this time around. Last time he did, but he got in before he realized what it was like. This time he had a family to protect and no choice," I said.

"And Malfoy will die without being properly mated and you _had_ to save him, I know. Come on, let's go back to the Ministry," Ron replied.

"Why?" I asked. "We just came from there."

"Because you need to talk to Head Auror Robards and explain your romantic intentions towards an inmate. If you're going through with this, then we might as well do it in a way that doesn't get you fired, mate," Ron answered.

"And you best do it soon, if that boy's ovulating again. Your window for action won't last long and there's no telling how much time has already past," Molly added.

And so Ron and I stepped back through the floo and I caught my boss before the end of the day. There was a lot of paperwork involved, but since it was a veela mating and not something either party has conscious control over, there wasn't any way this could be either of our fault. Besides, I'd been off of the case for a month now, so there was no appearance of impropriety. After a signed affidavit insisting that Draco and I were not in any way intimate while I was guarding him, I was free and clear to pursue a relationship as far as the Ministry was concerned. Convincing Draco would be an entirely different matter.

* * *

Author's Note: It's snowing again. My school hasn't canceled, tyrannical overlords that they are, but I ditched out of my morning classes. I do have to show up to teach this evening, but I'm hoping the snow stops by then. Thus this chapter for you. Next chapter Harry will make his first attempt at courting Draco.

Please Review!


	5. Chapter 5

Ron was waiting for me with a bouquet of silver tipped red roses and a book on veela poetry when I came out of Robards' office.

"Er, if you're trying to win my affection so that I won't go after Draco, you're not my type," I said, eyeing him skeptically.

"No you dolt, these are _for_ Malfoy. They're very expensive roses, so you owe me big time for this. Or rather, you owe George, because he bought them and you owe Angelina for picking them out," Ron replied.

"And the book?"

"Hermione likes poetry. I just went into Flourish and Blotts and ask for something with veela poetry. I hope it doesn't get you turned out on your tail, but if it does, don't blame me; I'm just trying to help. I've no clue if he'd fancy you waxing on about the elegant grace of his feathers."

"Thanks Mate!" I exclaimed, giving him a strong man hug.

"You're welcome. George said he reckons that with a Malfoy you're better off buying expensive jewelry, so if he doesn't like the poetry, we can go shopping tomorrow after the trial."

"You're really okay with this?"

"Well I think you'd be better off _not_ mating with Malfoy, but it's your life. If Malfoy is who you want, then it's Malfoy I'll help you woo. I've got your back mate."

"Thanks. This means a lot to me."

"But if this doesn't work, don't make chasing after veela a habit."

"Will do," I replied. "Now let's get to Malfoy Manor; the trial should be over for the day."

Ron nodded and we started walking towards the lifts.

"Um, do you want me to go with you, or is this the type of thing you want to do on your own?"

"Er, maybe you should wait at the Burrow."

"Yeah, but you have to promise me you'll come and tell me about it afterwards, even if it goes bad. Mum won't have me letting you go back to Grimmauld Place and crying your eyes out."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," I replied. We were boarding the lifts now.

Then we were in the atrium and Ron flooed to the Burrow, while I came out the public toilet and apparated over to Malfoy Manor. Lacey the house elf greeted me when I knocked on the door and I had her send word up to the Auror on guard duty that I was here to see Draco. Lacey disappeared and then reappeared a few minutes later, waving me up the stairs, but she didn't follow. Draco, Narcissa, and Aurors Jackson and Sheffield were in the second floor parlor when I went up the stairs.

"Potter, what are you doing here?" Jackson asked.

"I'm here to see Draco," I answered. "I've got Robards' permission."

"Why? Wasn't last time with him screaming at you to get out enough?" Jackson asked.

"As a matter of fact, no, it wasn't. How come you didn't tell Robards that he's ovulating again?" I asked.

"He is?" Jackson asked and Narcissa and Sheffield gasped.

"Don't tell me none of you noticed! I haven't seen him in a month and all it took me was one glance and I knew," I replied.

"No offense mate, but none of us are as obsessed with him as you are," Jackson replied.

"Harry, what this young man is trying to say is that while you have been away a month, for us Draco's transition has been slow and gradual. I for one wasn't sure if it was beginning again or if he was just putting back on the weight he lost. He really is still rather slender," Narcissa said.

I took another long look at Draco, who was staring at me, silently daring me to act. He stood self-consciously with his arms folded across his chest, but I could still see where the small mound of his belly protruded from his robes. He wasn't nearly as fat as he'd been before the miscarriage, but he was heavier than he'd been during school.

"No, he's definitely ovulating, I can tell," I reasserted, avoiding the word fat. I had enough experience with girls to know not to call them fat and I didn't want to risk that Draco would react the same.

"Draco, is this true?" Narcissa asked her son.

Draco looked like he was going to deny it, so I thrust the roses forward. "Here, these are for you," I said.

"They are lovely Harry," she said, giving Draco a significant look. "They must have cost you a fortune."

"I'd consider it worth it if Draco would agree to talk to me," I replied.

"Draco, go darling," Narcissa urged.

Draco looked from me, to his mother, back to me, to the other two Aurors, and then back to me, before nodding and taking the flowers. He briskly led me down the hall, to the second floor study.

"We're not supposed to be in here; we haven't cleared all of the books and scrolls," I said, halting our progress at the door.

"There's nothing in here but children's books and old Hogwarts homework. This is my study, not my father's," he replied. "Now do you want to talk to me or not?"

"I do, but why can't we talk in your bedroom?"

"Because it's inappropriate to have a wizard in my bedroom."

"I've been in your bedroom loads of times."

"That was when you were on duty; this is personal, or so I've been led to believe."

"Alright then. Er…" I said, trying to figure out where to start.

"Why'd you take my father's side in court today?" It was a demand for information, more than a question.

"Because I know how much he means to you. And well, everything I said was true. He didn't have a choice and he was trying to protect you. I don't think we should make him Minister of Magic or anything, but binding him to this house should keep him out of trouble. I know you and your mum wouldn't let him get caught up in something like this again."

"You seem to have a lot of trust in me."

"Yeah, well, you saved my life; both you and your mum did. When it came down to the end, the Malfoy family was on the right side."

While I talked, he put the flowers into a beautiful antique crystal vase, which filled with water on its own. "Self-refilling charm on the vase; I didn't use wandless magic," he said. He'd vowed not to perform any form of magic, even wandless, while on house arrest. Only accidental magic would be tolerated and then only if it was an isolated incident.

Vases with unknown charms on them were one of the reasons we weren't supposed to let the Malfoys hang out in this room. Sure it had passed a few basic sweeps for anything that could be dangerous or used in an escape, but it was still full of unknown benign magic. This meeting was important, so I chose to overlook the vase. "Do you like the flowers?" I asked.

"Yes. Why, may I ask, did you buy me flowers?"

"Because I know that I'm your mate and I was hoping that you'd grant me a date."

A date was the least of what I was hoping for. If going to save his life, we'd need to have sex and soon. I still wasn't positive how sex would work between the two of us, but I had since learned how sex goes between birds, which was what that specialist said veela sex was like.

Learning about bird sex had been much easier than learning about veela sex; all I had to do was walk into a muggle library and ask the librarian to help me find some information about bird sex. She'd shown me this new muggle invention called the internet and a diagram of two birds rubbing their cloacae together. With birds, there was no penetration, because neither sex had the equipment for that, which just left rubbing. Personally I hoped that Draco was willing to try regular gay sex, but if not, I'd settle for whatever it was that he's capable of.

"I told you before that you're not my mate," he said, but something in his voice sounded like he was about to give on this point.

"Yes, but you were lying then. I'm absolutely certain that I'm your mate. It has to be someone that you're in regular contact with or you wouldn't be ovulating again. That leaves just the eight guards you've had in the last few months and of them, I'm the only one who has saved your life. I know that saving a veela's life is very important when it comes to mate choice."

"I didn't pick you."

"I know, but _I am picking you_. I think you're hot and I'd be honored to mate with you."

"Forward much, Potter?"

"Come on Draco, this is serious: you're going to die if you don't mate soon. Is the thought of being with me and baring my child so repulsive that you'd rather die?"

"No, but you haven't exactly been courting me. I'm not some harlot that's going to surrender my knickers and let you do me, just because you've given me some flowers. I expect to be courted properly, veela or not."

"You can't be serious. Your life depends on this and you're refusing because I haven't courted you properly? You need to get your priorities straight."

"If you're not willing to win my hand properly, then I have no interest in acknowledging any alleged veela-based attraction to any four-eyed scar-headed gits I may or may not feel."

"Whoa, I didn't say I wasn't willing to do this properly. How much time do we have?"

"A week or more."

"Right and how exactly do I court you properly?"

"Bring me flowers and gifts and take me on formal dates."

"Will a poetry book count as a gift?" I asked, pulling out the book Ron had gotten for me.

"No, I hate poetry. I require jewelry for the first gift; you know, a watch or cufflinks would be appropriate."

"I'll work on that tomorrow. Any chance those flowers are enough to win me a date for the night."

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On where you plan on taking me."

"I can't take you anywhere; you're still on house arrest."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because he turned and took two long strides towards the door.

"Wait! What if we have dinner here? I'll get the house elves to make something fancy and we'll go out on the patio and have a picnic." We weren't supposed to leave the house with the Malfoys unless it was to take them to the Ministry.

"Take me out to the garden and for a fly on our brooms and it's a deal."

"You know I'm not supposed to allow you or your mum on brooms."

"That was when you were my guard; now you're my date. An entirely different set of rules apply."

"Fine, we can go for a fly, but we have to share a broom."

"Only if I'm in front this time." He was obviously referring to our escape from the room of requirement during the final battle.

"Deal," I conceded. I didn't mind being behind him one bit. A vision of his fit round bottom pressed against my bits flashed before my eyes and sent blood rushing south, before I forced the image away and tried to concentrate on something else.

"Good. I suggest you go down to the kitchens to discuss dinner arrangements," he said, before striding once more towards the door. And since I'd just won, I let him go.

The elves were all very eager to make an elaborate last minute picnic dinner for us. Lacey seemed to swell with pride when I addressed her by name and she was falling all over herself with suggestions on how to woo her master.

"And Master Draco likes rock music sir. He likes to dance. Master Draco is always asking Lacey to purchase the latest recordings," Lacey said in a high pitched squeak.

That was one of the more helpful suggestions, so I stowed it away in my mind. "Right, rock music. Got it."

As soon as I finished up with the elves, I went back upstairs for Draco. Dinner wouldn't be ready for forty-five minutes, but I figured he wouldn't be opposed to a pre-dinner stroll on the grounds. I must've been right, because he jumped at the offer and then spent half an hour showing me the garden. But the garden wasn't all that big and I didn't have anything to contribute to the conversation. Between herbology class and all those summers working in Aunt Petunia's garden, I knew a bit about gardening, but I'd never even seen the plants that he pointed out as his favorites. They were all extremely expensive looking magical exotic things with gorgeous flowers and some of them even sang.

According to my watch, we still had fifteen minutes to go until the elves would begin serving dinner when Draco ran silent. We kept walking, but we'd already been around the garden five times and if his silence was anything to go by, he thought it was my turn to contribute to the conversation. But what did one talk about when one was courting a veela who also happened to be a Malfoy?

"Er, it's lovely weather we're having," I offered.

"Tell me, Potter, why did you ask me on this date?" he asked.

"Because…" This question was a trap or my name wasn't Harry Potter. My first instinct was to mention that his life depended on it and cite the fact that I was his mate. But after the way he'd reacted the first time and the fact that earlier he didn't seem impressed with rational, logical argument, I thought that mentioning the veela thing wasn't the way to go. "I, er wanted to…ah…" I bit back that answer and stopped before it was too late. I was silent for a minute while I tried to switch gears and come up with an answer that would appeal to him. While I flounder, he stood there watching me and not bothering to help out in the least. Well that is unless you count the fact that he got bored and I caught him checking the appearance of his reflection in the peacock pond. That reminded me of his vanity, so I decided to try to appeal to that side of him. "Well you're hot, of course. I'd have to be blind not to see that and not want you."

"And what about me do you find attractive?" He was running his fingers through his pale blond hair.

"Your hair's gorgeous, really. And then there's your, um, face; that's gorgeous too. Then there's your fit body."

"So it's not just that I'm a veela?"

"Well I'd have to be crazy not to go for a veela; veela are the sexiest creatures on the planet, aren't they? But no, it's not just that. It's mostly you, Draco Malfoy, that I find attractive. And if you happen to also be a veela, well then I'll not hold that against you."

"That's very generous of you. In return, I'll try not to hold your Potter-ness against you."

"My Potter-ness?" I asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Your scar, your stupid hair, and the fact that you saved us all from a madman," he replied, waving his hand dismissively in the air as he spoke.

"You'd hold it against me that I defeated Voldemort? Are you serious?" I was incredulous now.

"No, I just said I wouldn't."

"Did that even need to be said?"

"My father would think so."

Bloody Lucius Malfoy was causing trouble from behind Ministry walls, it would seem.

"Right, so that's good then. I saved the world and you won't hold it against me. Good to know in case I end up saving the world again."

"Whoa! I only said I'd overlook it _this_ time; _next_ time you risk your neck for the greater good I'll not be so forgiving. Grounds for a divorce, that is."

I groaned and wondered how serious he was.

"You joke, but you're proposing marriage and conception of a child here. You go running off to save the world, get killed in the process, and I'm the one left a widower with a child to raise on my own."

Well that certainly made more sense than what was running through my head. And with only a week to convince him to conceive that child he just mentioned, I really couldn't afford any setbacks. Thus I let my objections slide and returned to my earlier compliments. "I also like how smart you are. I'm not that brainy, so I'm definitely glad you're wicked smart. Our eggs are sure to take after you in the brains department."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically and let an awkward pause draw out painfully long, but I was spared from further awkward conversation by the appearance of our soup on top of a table set for two. I held out my arm hoping that was the right thing to do and was shocked beyond belief when he took it. Together we walked to the table and I pulled out his chair, like in one of those old romance films Hermione likes. I sat down opposite him and we tucked into our soup.

The main course followed and was finished out with dessert. The best part about the meal was watching him lick his pudding off of his spoon. He noticed me staring at his tongue and asked, "What?" pausing in his eating to stare back at me.

I could feel my checks heating into a world-class blush. "Um, er…" I stammered, trying to think how to reply to that. Then it hit me that words really were not the best answer. I leaned in, closing my eyes, and aimed my lips towards his. I was almost there when he pushed me away.

"What do you take me for, Potter? Some two knut street worker who you can have your way with? Just because you're the Savior of the Wizarding World and an Auror and I'm a Ministry prisoner doesn't mean I'm going to let you take advantage of me," he stated forcefully.

"Huh?" I asked, still in a daze and not understanding what he was going on about. It was just a kiss, after all.

"I expect to be courted _properly_, according to the highest standards of pureblood courting rituals. You can either do so or hit the road. That lane there connects to a muggle road after a few miles." He pointed to the long drive leading up to the Manor and his chin was set in a hard, sharp line.

"What?"

"Are you deaf or daft?"

I shook my head, regrouped mentally for a minute, and then figured out a coherent response. "I wasn't trying to take you to bed. I was just trying to kiss you. We had a nice date."

"The first kiss is not to occur before we've been dating an entire week and _not_ before dinner is finished on the first date. Do us both a favor and get Weasley or Granger to explain pureblood courting rules to you."

I spluttered for a few moments, before saying, "Er, but we need to get to the part where we're having sex by the end of the week! We can't be waiting until then for the first kiss!"

"I'll not be having sex with you before we're married."

"You want to get married? By the end of the week?"

"No, I'll not accept a proposal until we've completed all of the steps of the courtship. That typically takes half a year or more."

"But you'll die if this egg isn't fertilized!"

"That so, I still won't sacrifice my standards."

"Then you'll sacrifice your _life_ to uphold your standards?" I asked incredulously.

"No. I require only a sample of your ejaculate to survive. If you'll kindly provide it in a dish it will be sufficient."

"A _dish_?"

"Yes."

"Let me get this straight: you want me to _ejaculate_ into a _dish_ to conceive our first child, in order to save your life?"

"Yes Potter. Salazar you're daft. I knew Granger was the brains of your little outfit, but I didn't realize you were so completely lacking in the area. Should I compose a letter to Granger and have her explain this to you? Maybe you can only understand if it comes from her."

"No, that's not…Never mind. What are you going to do with my ejaculate once you get it?"

"Fertilize the egg growing within me, of course."

"Yeah, but how?"

"Same way birds do it."

"Which is?"

"Do you really require me to explain to you the birds and the bees?"

"Yes." I thought I had some idea of what he was going to do, but I didn't know, not really. Was he going to penetrate his veela bits with his fingers to deliver my sperm? Or was he not capable of penetration? If the latter, how did fertilization happen?

"When two adults love each other, follow the proper courting rules, and get married, they then have sex," he began.

I stared at him with wide eyes and a dropped jaw, not believing that he was going to start with a sex lecture fit for an eleven year old. What was this, first year all over again?

He must have notice my expression. "Oh do tell me you can follow simple explanations from someone other than Granger. Should I just ask her to explain the birds and the bees too?"

"No, um, er…" I sighed in frustration. "It's just that I know this bit. I know how it happens in humans. I just don't understand how it happens in veela."

"Oh, is that all?"  
"Yes."

"Well it's simple really. It happens the same way it happens in birds."  
"Forgive me, but I wasn't able to find any bird pornography." The diagrams didn't count and even given what I'd learn about bird sex, I still wasn't sure how much of it was similar in veela.

He laughed at that. Suddenly the tension between us was diffused and I was laughing too. It was some time later before we composed ourselves and he finally answered the question.

"During copulation, the male veela ejaculates onto the surface of the female veela's cloaca. The female's body takes it up and transports it into the uterus where one sperm is then able to fuse with the unfertilized egg. Fertilization triggers growth of the yolk and albumin, or the whites of the egg. For the first three months the embryo and the egg grow and mature, until the yolk and albumin reaches its maximum size and a hard shell is formed around it and the embryo. The egg then leaves the female's body and continues to develop externally, provided that it's cared for and kept warm, for an additional year."

"And the hatching? How does that happen?"

"An egg-tooth. Several teeth erupt before the hatching and the baby will use one to crack the egg-shell. The shell is abnormally thick and it would exhaust a baby to saw through it, so the parents typically help it out once the initial crack has formed."

I nodded, deep in thought. That was a lot more information than I'd been able to gather on my own. I wanted to ask him how sex between a human and a veela typically went, but I was too embarrassed to ask. He'd told me enough of the details that I thought I knew the answer. It seemed pretty clear that veela cloacae weren't capable of being penetrated, and I figured exact details regarding intercourse could wait until he was actually willing to have sex with me. Merlin, the last thing I wanted right now was for him to go off on another pureblood chastity speech about how I was not to treat him like a harlot.

We were both silent for some time while I thought and he picked back up his pudding and spoon. My head was still spinning when he finished his dessert, so I pushed my untouched pudding over to stall him. I thought for a moment that he was going to refuse and rage about it, but he stuck to the one raised eyebrow, before taking the treat and eating it. That had the added advantage that I had more time to stare at his tongue, while I tried to figure out where this date was going.

It was getting dark and colder. I cast a warming charm and lit the candle that appeared before us, but there was still a choice coming up very quickly. Either I could offer to walk him back inside and deliver him to his guards, or I could keep him out on this date into the night. Extending the date would give us more time to get to know each other and that was a good thing given that we were planning the conception of a joint child in a week's time. But on the other hand, I didn't know if that conformed to pureblood courting rules. What if there was some rule about how long the first date was allowed to last? I now knew that kissing wasn't permitted, but were after dinner chats permitted?

I didn't know, so when he finally put down his spoon and looked up at me expectantly, I decided to risk it. "Care to go for a stroll in the moonlight?"

"No."

"Oh. Um, I'll just take you inside then."

"You do that and you can consider your chance of a second date null."

"Huh?"

"You promised me a broom ride. If you renege on your promise, I'll not be eager for a second date."

"Oh…_oh_. Yeah, er, yes. Let's go for a fly," I agreed. I could feel the corners of my mouth turning up in an uncontrollably wide smile. A fly might be even better than a kiss, especially because we were to share a broom. At least there was one good thing about him being under house arrest.

"I take it you know how to undo the wards on the broom-shed," he said, standing up and leaving his napkin on the table.

I stood too and nodded. He started walking in the direction of the broom-shed and I followed, adding, "Er yes, I do."

The Malfoy grounds were sprawling. The garden was in the front of the house, while the broom-shed was in the rear. We walked around the perimeter of the house, with him taking long, quick strides, and me on his heels trying to keep up. It wasn't that I couldn't walk that fast, but that I kept fumbling my steps, because I wasn't concentrating on where I was going and was unfamiliar with the uneven path. What I was focused on was his right arm and right hand, as they swung back and forth with his movements. I kept thinking that I should take his hand in mine or his arm; surely hand holding must be permitted for a first date. I must've reached out for him half a dozen times during the short walk. Our skin brushed a few times, but each attempt was foiled either by my nerves, his speed, the ground, or a combination of the three.

And then we were at the broom-shed. "Well, have at it then," he said, indicating the wooden structure.

"Ah, yes, alright then," I said. "Er, could you turn around? I'm not supposed to tell you what sort of wards we use."

He huffed out a put upon sigh, but turned around. I concentrated and cast the nonverbal counter spells to remove the wards.

"Alright, you can turn back now."

He did and then reached out to open the shed. A huge smile graced his lips when he turned the door handle. Then he was reaching inside for his black Nimbus. He straddled the broom, ready for takeoff, but waited for me. I climbed on behind him and wrapped both of my arms securely around him, pulling my chest flush with his back in sort of the opposite of our configuration during our escape from Fiendfyre.

"Ready?" he asked.

I was and we were off, shooting into the night sky with the wind in our faces and our bodies pressed flushed. His skin was burning hot underneath mine and his cloth covered body was warm as well, especially compared with the chilly night air. We'd left the warming charm behind at the table, so I cast another one now. It kept off the worst of the chill, which worked out to my disadvantage because he shifted his body slightly away from me now that he didn't need me for warmth. But it grew colder as the night grew older and soon the warming charm was not enough to stave off the wind. It was then that his body once again pressed flush against mine and I clung all the tighter to him, in the guise of preserving body heat; hypothermia wasn't a pleasant way to conclude a first date after all.

From the back of that broom, I watched the setting sun and the rising of the moon as dusk fell, while he flew loops in the sky. We went up and down, through loop-d-loops, and around in long figure eights. As we flew, the sky turned dark and the moon came out, so that our journey was lit only by the moon and the stars. I was worried then that we might crash in the darkness, but he stuck to the clearing in back of the house and I could see that we were well away from the black of the encroaching forest. He seemed to know his flight paths like they were engraved on the back of his hand. But then this was his house where he'd grown up and lived all of his life, so perhaps they were engraved in his brain.

We flew for hours, stopping only to wave at Harper when he came out to check on us. There must've been a shift change while we were out and he was probably checking to make sure Draco hadn't escaped with me. Unlike Jackson, Harper didn't seem content to let me watch his ward without supervision, because he stayed out back on the porch watching us fly. We might've stayed out there all night, but after a time I realized that I couldn't feel my fingers, which were numb from the cold. I reached out and felt first the skin on Draco's arms where they reached out from his sleeves to grip the broom handle, and then the skin on his face. Both were as cold as my hands.

"I think we better call it a night before we freeze to death," I said into his ear.

He leaned his head back into my lips and the warmth was intoxicating. His ear was cold, but it was hot in comparison to the wind.

I couldn't hear him agree with me, because of the roar of the wind, but he pulled the broom down for a landing. As soon as we were on solid ground again, I pulled him into a warm embrace and held out the broom for Harper.

"Lock this back up for us Harper; I'll take him inside and wait for you," I said.

Harper complied, taking the broom, while Draco led me in the back door of the Manor, straight into the kitchens. It was late at night, but the room was still pleasantly warm from the earlier cooking activity of the elves. There was a fire lit in the hearth and he led me over to it, reaching out his hands to warm them in the flames. I reached out too, but kept my body wrapped around his. He started shivering and I took advantage of it by rubbing my hands quickly up and down his arms, trying to warm him up with the friction and with my body heat.

"Another warming charm please," he requested softly, turning his head slightly back towards me.

I murmured my agreement into his ear and cast the charm, before tucking my wand back in my robes. Our time by the fire was interrupted by Harper, who had finished with warding the broom-shed and followed us into the kitchen. He held his hands out to the fire, turning our party of two into a party of three. That ruined the mood, so it was only a moment after that that I suggested we go upstairs. I dropped Draco off in the parlor with his mum. I thanked him for a lovely evening, but didn't move to kiss him.

"You're welcome and goodnight," he replied, inclining his head in a dismissive gesture.

I nodded back and took my leave.

* * *

Author's Note: It is snowing again, so there is the first date. I hope you liked it! Up next will be more of dating, but more importantly, the conception.

Please Review!


	6. Chapter 6

By the end of the week Lucius' trial was over. He got off with a much lighter sentence than predicted, thanks to my testimony. Five years in Azkaban and then house arrest in Malfoy Manor under the supervision of relatives for the rest of his life was all he got for his very many crimes. But I wasn't complaining. In fact, I was really happy about the outcome and it was all because of Draco. Draco was happy his father's sentence was so light and I was happy that he was happy.

Draco and I had a date every night that week. We never left Manor grounds, but we had dinner in the garden, out on the back lawn, in the dining room, and even on the rooftop patio. The elves cooked, of course, and with a little notice, they were brilliant at it, really making the dates special. And then there were a variety of after dinner activities that made the dates all the more special.

There were a few more broom rides, but there were also trips to the Malfoy Owl Nursery (where Malfoy elves bred owls), the Malfoy Vineyard (the Malfoy elves used the grapes to make wine), the Malfoy Farm (where all of the food the elves cooked came from), the Malfoy Hall of Ancestors (where portraits of famous and/or important Malfoys were kept), the Malfoy Family Museum (where the family displayed what they viewed to be their most important relics), and even the Malfoy Ballroom (where he taught me to dance). I was convinced that any day now he was going to take me on a tour of the Malfoy Peacock nursery, where albino peacocks were bred. But when I asked him about it, he informed me that the peacocks breed like rabbits when left to their own devices, so no special facility was needed.

I had a lot of fun on those dates. It turns out that once you get used to the snark, Draco's actually pretty funny and entertaining. He was good at telling funny stories, always miming actions or imitating someone's voice to go along with the tale. And he was a fairly good artist, as evidenced by his sketches which I'd already seen back when I was guarding him. He was a brilliant dancer, as evidenced by my sore feet. I was beginning to think there wasn't anything he wasn't good at, until he admitted that he can't sing and has absolutely no musical talent; tone deft if you ask his mother.

According to pureblood courting rules, with dates came gifts; thus I was always on the lookout for the next courting gift. We were rushing things a bit by having a date every single night, instead of the recommended once or twice a week, which meant I couldn't spend a lot of time or money on each gift. He seemed to understand and was pleased with the simple flowers I usually brought him; either one lone expensive flower or a bouquet of regular muggle flowers. If anything his house was getting overrun with all of the flowers.

Of course flowers weren't the only thing I got him. The very next day Ron and I left Lucius' trial early, right after Ron finished testifying, and went to a jewelry shop in London. I purchased an expensive pair of platinum cufflinks, which Ron and I took back to the Burrow to have his mum wrap. Only Fleur was there waiting for me, having heard from Molly about my situation with Draco, and she persuaded me not to wrap them or give them to Draco right away. She and I talked for a few hours that afternoon and made arrangements for the weekend.

I spent that Saturday at Shell Cottage, learning an ancient veela enchantment to put on the cufflinks. It was an anti-rejection charm that the veela's mate placed on a piece of jewelry so that the veela wouldn't have to feel alone or rejected without his or her mate present. Given our circumstances, it was a really brilliant idea. I was an Auror and although I'd yet to be assigned undercover work or a seriously grueling case, I knew they were coming. Eventually a time would come when we would be separated for days, weeks, or even months at a time. This enchantment would mean he wouldn't have to suffer while I was away. Plus his health was at stake, because he had taken so long to admit the truth and was endanger of feeling rejected, with mate rejection being a serious cause of death among veela. This enchantment would help stave off feelings of rejection and prolong the mating period, which was a very good thing.

The enchantment was bloody complicated to cast. It involved dredging up my love and acceptance for Draco and pushing a bit of it into each cufflink. Finding my love and acceptance was the complicated part. I'd made a commitment to save him, I refused to let him die from mate rejection, and I'd been crushing on him for over a month now, but we'd just barely had our first honest conversation and our first date. We were nowhere near madly in love. But still, the enchantment required love, so I spent the day searching my inner self and finding every bit of love I had for him.

It wasn't the undying unconditional love I wished I had for him, but there were some things I loved about him. I loved his sexy body, which was probably the easiest form of love to find. I loved his spirit and zest for life, which took a lot of work to admit to myself, because of our rocky past, but eventually I did find it. When it came down to it, I couldn't bear the thought of a world without Draco Malfoy in it, which was why I saved his life twice so far and I'd save it again if I had to; I'd even give up part of my life for him and that was a form of love. Finally, when it wasn't aimed at me, I loved his sense of humor. Those were the three types of love I had for him after five dates, so those were the types of love I pushed into the cufflinks.

The acceptance was much easier for me to come up with. He had a lot of flaws and had made a lot of mistakes in his past, but he was a child, had been raised that way, and hadn't had the experience to realize why he was wrong. When it had come down to it, he hadn't been able to kill, he hadn't even liked to torture, and he had saved my life, at great personal cost to himself and his family; he knew he'd be incurring Voldemort's wrath if he didn't turn me in, but still he'd kept silent and refused to admit it was me the snatchers had brought in. He hadn't even wanted to admit it was Ron and Hermione who were with me, only neither of them had done anything to alter their appearance and his relatives had recognized my friends on their own.

All in all, it took me all day Saturday to enchant those cufflinks, but it was worth it. Plus I got a lot of really useful advice on how to deal with a veela and with being the mate of a veela from Bill and Fleur. Fleur had a bunch of books on veela she offered to let me borrow and Bill had plenty of firsthand experience with a quarter veela.

I waited until our seventh date, exactly, before giving Draco the cufflinks. It was the one week anniversary of our first date and the beginning of our courtship. That meant it was the first date according to pureblood protocol in which I was allowed to kiss him. I thought it was an important milestone and that the cufflinks would be a good gift to go along with it; the pair made a nice symbol, and according to Fleur, symbolism was very important to veela. In effect, I was sealing our first kiss with a promise to love and accept him as my mate. It went over very well with him. My only complaint was that the kiss was entirely too chase, being all closed lipped and no tongue.

I was really enjoying our dates, but always on the back of my mind was the question of how much time we had. He was ovulating and the optimum date of conception was approaching. I didn't want to miss it, but he didn't want to talk about it. There had been a few arguments over the subject at first, but then he had promised to tell me when my ejaculate was needed and I promised to stop reminding him or hassling him about it. After that neither of us brought the subject up and our dates went more smoothly.

And then the evening came when he asked me for it. He had a lot of self-confidence and was the type of person who was never hesitant about anything, but with this he was. "Er, could I get that sample tonight?" he asked, blushing and staring down at his hands, which he was wringing in his lap.

As much as it was on my mind, his wording threw me off. "Sample?" I asked confused.

"Of your…essence," he clarified, somehow reluctant to spell it out. We'd talked about it before and he hadn't had a problem with saying the E word, but now it seemed he did.

"Oh, you mean my ejaculate?"

"Yes."

"Oh! When do you need it? Right now? Or did you want to show me the Malfoy Lake first?"

He'd promised yesterday that after dinner today he'd take me out to the Malfoy Lake, where the elves had a few small fish farms going. He was even to teach me how to fish. Well dinner was over and I thought we were headed over to the lake on the other side of the forest, but if it was time, then we could change our plans.

"After is fine. We can finish up earlier than usual so that you can…"

"Oh yeah, sure," I agreed and quickly changed the subject before my date died of embarrassment.

I'd always thought fishing was dull. Turns out it's slightly less dull with magic, although infinitely more disturbing. This variety of magical glowing rainbow trout was clearly more intelligent than muggle fish, shepherding their young around like a mother duck, except with the flashing light patterns. Draco said they communicated using those light patterns and ate mostly water nymphs. He caught one to show me up close, using a live doxy for bait.

The doxy screamed and wriggled on the hook, shouting, "I'm bleeeeding! You bloody bastard! Look at all the horrible blue blooooood!" in a very high pitched shrill voice.

I was all too happy to cut that trip short and take Draco back to Malfoy Manor.

"Do you want to go home and bring it back to me when you're done?" he offered, when we were once again back in his parlor.

"No, there's no need. I can do it here in the loo," I replied. Truthfully I was hoping that he'd want to participate in the collection or at least watch. That and I didn't fancy carrying a bowl of spunk around the Burrow and risk a mess when trying to apparate with it. "What do you want me to collect it in?"

"Oh, like the Ancient Malfoy Ceremonial Ejaculate Vessel kept in the Malfoy Museum and used by generations of Malfoys in the conception of Malfoy heirs?"

"Yeah, I guess," I replied, hoping that I wasn't expected to do it into some old piece of crystal. What if I broke it? What if Lucius had used the same piece before me? Ew!

"There isn't one. Ask the house elves for something, but make sure they know not to give you any of the good dishes; I plan on tossing it when you're done with it."

I sighed with relief. "Er, which bathroom should I use?"

"Preferably the one at your house, but if you really must, you could use the one in the guest bedroom."

"Yes please."

He showed me to a bathroom that was dripping in opulence. I stood there trying to think of how to word my request for him to stay in a way that wouldn't be offensive; we were just barely at the kissing stage after all and what I was proposing was a lot more serious than kissing. But before I could get out so much as a stammer, he turned and closed the door behind him. He closed the door to the guest bedroom too if the noise of a second door closing was anything to go by. Just my luck and he'd close every door between us and try to get as far away from me as possible.

But I had a job to do and a life depending on me, so I pushed my disappointment aside and called Lacey.

"Harry Potter, sir, wants Lacey to give him one of Master Draco's bowls to throw away?" Lacey asked, wringing her ears after hearing my request.

"Yes Lacey. Any bowl will do."

"And Lacey is not to be cleaning this bowl? Ever?" Lacey looked like she was about to cry in her distress.

"I guess you could clean it before you throw it away." I shrugged my shoulders. "Not sure you'd want to though."

"Oh Lacey _is_ wanting too! Lacey will be very pleased to clean the bowl that Harry Potter will defile to save Master Draco's life!" She started bawling in what I could only assume were happy tears, sinking to her knees and bowing her head to me. "Oh thank you so much Harry Potter. You will not regret this, sir."

"I already do," I murmured, before urging the elf to get me the bowl already.

She brought me back a fancy porcelain bowl with the family crest on it, explaining that it was trash anyway, because it had a small chip. Then she left and I was _finally_ left alone with my bowl to do my business. When I finished, I washed up and took the bowl to Draco, who I found in his room.

"I, er, finished," I said, holding out the bowl.

"That fast?"

"It's been half an hour! It took me bloody forever to get the thoughts of your house elf out of my head."

"Alright, leave it on the sink in my bathroom and I'll get to it."

I did as he said and then went back out into his bedroom, hoping that he'd let me watch, but knowing that there was no chance of it.

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. I'll show you the Malfoy Dung Heap or something," he said, dismissing me with a nod.

"You don't want me to stay to see how it goes? I could wait in the parlor," I offered.

"No. If there are any problems, I'll have Harper send you a message."

"Are you sure? What if you need more or need help with it?"

"I won't. I've been doing this just as long as the next wizard."

"You _have_?"

"My part of it, yes. Not the part with the bowl."

"Right."

"Now could you please get out of here? You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

"Yes, er, alright. Do I get the usual goodnight kiss?"

"Yes, fine," he said standing up and taking a few steps towards me.

I met him halfway and pushed my lips into his, my eyes closing involuntarily. His lips were soft and oh so very hot. If only I'd had these lips a few minutes ago when I was in the loo… It occurred to me then what he about to do and that he might want to use this kiss for inspiration. He'd never allowed me to deepen the kiss before, but I decided to try it again now. I licked his lips and pushed my tongue out between his lips.

I thought he was going to push me away at first, but then his lips gave and his mouth opened up. My tongue slipped inside and I had my first proper snog with a boy. Let me tell you, Draco Malfoy is a good kisser. I know he pretends to be all innocent, but the tongue that slipped inside my mouth was confident and sure. He was exceedingly skilled with his tongue and he soon had me hard, again, and panting for breath. I broke the kiss due to my need to breathe and he took that moment to slip into the restroom and lock the door behind him.

"See yourself out, please Harry," he called from the other side of the door.

I left, letting Harper know I was going on my way out.

I returned to the Burrow and told Ron, Molly, and Arthur about what happened, but the person I really wanted to talk to was Hermione. Unfortunately Hermione was at Hogwarts doing her NEWTs and it was a school night. Even Ginny and Luna, the other two girls I was close with, were there. And then it occurred to me that Headmistress McGonagall had said that I was welcome to stop by any time I wanted. Well I wanted now.

I flooed over to Hogwarts, stepping out of the fire in the Headmistress' office. I exchanged greetings with Dumbledore's and Snape's portraits. I apologized and explained to McGonagall that I really was there to see Hermione, not her. She waved me along, telling me that it was no problem. I left her office, pulled out my old map, and located my best friend in the library.

I took off running, eager to be reunited with Hermione. She squealed loudly when she saw me, jumping up and flinging her arms around me. I returned the hug and spun her around. We caused quite the stir in the library and Madam Pince threw us out. That was just as well, because I didn't want an audience for what I had to say.

We ended up finding a dusty unused classroom to chat in. We'd been writing letters back and forth, but it wasn't the same. We were both very happy to see each other again, even though it hadn't been more than a few months. And then of course there was my big news; Hermione squealed when I told her. Then she made me tell her every little detail, including how shy Draco had been about it all.

"How unusual for him…I wonder what's going on in his head?" Hermione pondered out loud.

I wondered the same thing and supplied a few more details. I got side tracked telling her about how awful the fishing trip had been and she was absolutely appalled by it.

"I'll have to look into magical law on fishing magical species. There has to be something we can do to stop it," she said. Then her eyes popped wide open and she jumped as if someone had turned on a light bulb in her brain. "Oh Harry! I've just thought of something."

"What is it?" I asked, wondering if it was about fish, magical law, or elves.

"Draco; I know why he was acting so out of character with you earlier!"

"You do? Why?"

"Think about it Harry, he's a _veela_. He's been bred all his life to believe in _human_ superiority and to hide that he's even _part_ veela. And he's not only part, he's got the veela sex and not just that, but all his life he thought he was a male veela, when in reality he was a female veela. And then he mates with you, someone he's used to fighting with, and he's afraid to let you get too close or see too much. He's self-conscious Harry, because he knows he's different and he thinks that as soon as you know it too, you're going to throw it right back in his face."

"Are you sure?" I asked skeptically, even though there was something that rang true about her hypothesis.  
"Yes. Now if you want to move your relationship along, you have to get him to trust you. You need to tell him that you don't care that he's different and that you aren't going to make fun of him for it. Merlin, he doesn't even have the veela allure!"

"That doesn't bother me; I'm mostly immune to it anyway."

"But it bothers him! Think about; someone like Fleur has the best of both worlds, because she has some of the allure and all human body parts. Draco thinks he has the worst of both worlds, because he has no allure and the bird body parts. All the stories on human/veela hybridization say that the veela allure is completely responsible for the human's sexual gratification. Veela don't have parts compatible with humans, so they use their chemical means to illicit the needed response from humans. But Draco doesn't have chemical means and he doesn't know how he's expected to satisfy you in bed."

"Oh…that makes sense." And it did; it really did. "Do you think he's worried about anal sex?"

"No, why would he be?"

"Because I'm gay and if he can't do it any other way, I thought we might…do it that way…" I admitted blushing. This was a bit too much to be talking to Hermione about.

"Harry, he's a veela; a bird. Birds don't have anuses."

"They don't?"

"No."

"Then how do they, you know?"

"Through the same orifice they use for everything else."

"So his…cloaca?"

"Serves multiple functions, yes."

"Oh…no wonder he's freaking out about sex. I kept wondering why he's so against it when it's his _life_ that's on the line, but now I get it. I'd probably be freaking out too if I were him."

"You need to tell him that you don't care about that, Harry. You have to tell him that you won't make fun of him and that you want whatever it is he's capable of doing."

"What, precisely, do you think that is?"

"Well…hmm…he could you know, use his hands or his mouth…"

"No, I mean the other way around. What would I be able to do to him?"

"Hands, definitely. You'll have to work anything else out with him."

"So you haven't been able to find any books with specifics?"

"Loads, but they all involve veela with at least some allure. It's pretty rare to have a human/veela hybrid with the veela sex. When it does happen, it's usually the child of two first generation hybrids, who still have plenty of allure."

"Merlin…"

"Exactly."

"I have to talk to him. It wouldn't matter if he's a eunuch, truly, if everything else was there."

"Well you should tell him that, but maybe leave out the mention of the word eunuch; you don't want him thinking that you think he _is_ a eunuch. I'd be insulted if I was him."

"Thank you so much Hermione."

"You're welcome," she replied, taking me into a friendly hug.

I hugged her back and while I was doing so, I glanced down at my watch and noticed the time. It was already late when I came here and now it was well past curfew for Hermione. "Look at the time! You better go; I'll write and let you know how it goes."

She agreed and we walked together back up to McGonagall's office. We hugged one more time and then she continued on up the stairs, while I flooed back to the Burrow.

* * *

Author's Note: It snowed all weekend, the hand plow broke, and now I can't get my car out of the drive. Thus a new chapter and the conception. Up next Draco will take Harry to visit the Ancient Malfoy Rubbish Heap and there will be a surprise…

Please Review!


	7. Chapter 7

The next day I knew I should sit Draco down and have that talk about sex _before_ we got sidetracked doing anything else, but I chickened out. In my defense the elves were working on this special elven delicacy that I didn't want to miss. There was a chance that the coming talk would end badly and Draco would throw me out, so I told myself that I'd do it after dinner. Draco was going on about the Malfoy Dung Heap and how Malfoys had been dumping their garbage in that one sacred spot for nine hundred years. That was something I didn't mind spoiling or missing entirely if I was told to go.

After dinner Draco led me off into the forest saying, "It's just through this clump of trees." Only he stopped in a small, beautiful clearing, without a scrap of debris in sight.

"Ah, Draco? Where's the rubbish?" I asked.

"I didn't bring you here to show you rubbish; that's just what I told you, because I didn't want the Aurors to know. I brought you here to show you this willow tree."

"Er, it's lovely," I replied, wondering what was so special about this tree. It wasn't huge or particularly old looking, but it had an artistic wave to its branches that was very aesthetically pleasing. It also had a bit of the gnarl of the Whomping Willow to it, but not much, because it was still a young tree.

"Harry, there is a Malfoy family secret in this clearing that I wanted to share with you, but you have to promise to never tell another being; not even a elf, doxy, or a crup."

"Can you tell me what it is before I promise that?" The Malfoys were known to be involved in dark magic and if Draco was about to show me his father's horcrux, you can bet I would run straight to the Ministry with that information, before setting off to destroy it.

"No, you have to trust me. Do you trust me?"

"Er…" I waffled back and forth regarding what I should do. There was a real possibility that he was about to show me something that shouldn't be here; why else would he be keeping it a secret from his guards and swearing me to secrecy? But on the other hand, I had just given him my sperm to use in the conception of our first child; he was probably pregnant by me at this very moment. If I was trusting him to carry my child, shouldn't I be able to trust him with anything? Finally I came to a decision and asked, "Can you at least tell me if this is dark magic? If it's not, then yes, I'll trust you. But if it is, I don't trust myself to keep quiet."

"It's not dark magic."

"It's not?"

"It's not," he confirmed, looking me in the eyes and conveying his truthfulness.

"Then why are we hiding it from the world?"

"He's sacred and we haven't had the process patented yet."

"Oh, is that it?"

"Yes. Do you promise?"

"I do. What is it?"

"He."

"Huh?"

"Grandfather Willow is a he."

"He doesn't look old enough to be a grandfather…"

"That's because Grandfather Abraxas chose a young sapling that he himself planted. This way he'll live longer."

"I'm confused," I admitted.

"My grandfather Abraxas Malfoy's dying act was to fuse the essence of his being with this tree. I brought you out here to meet my grandfather and to tell him about our courtship," he explained, with a sweeping gesture to indicate the tree."

"Okay," I ventured tentatively, wondering if this was a joke.

"Harry, this is my grandfather Abraxas Malfoy. Grandfather, this is my intended, Harry Potter."

Draco's voice was grand and serious, but I still thought he might be joking. At least I did until I saw the face of an old man appear in the tree. Right about when the tree said, "Good day Harry Potter," was when I screamed and jumped back two feet.

As soon as the initial shock was out of me, I felt like a cad. If it had been a real danger, I'd just jumped back and left my boyfriend who was pregnant with my child there to face it on his own. I hadn't even reached for him to take him with me in my flight from the tree. That was unforgivable in my book and wasn't made any better by the fact that it was just a sentient tree that had frightened me. That tree was his grandfather. He introduced me to his grandfather and I screamed like I was a muggle seeing a ghost for the first time. Well he was a ghost, in a way, because he was dead, but still; screaming is not the proper pureblood way to respond when meeting deceased relatives.

"Um, sorry," I stammered, stepping forward again and wrapping my left arm around Draco's shoulder, while extending the right hand out to shake with a branch in hopes of rectifying my mistake. "Good day to you too, sir."

"I fine young man you've got here, Dragon," the face in the tree said and shook my hand with its branch.

"Good day Grandfather. How have you been? I'm sorry we haven't been able to come visit you, but I couldn't let anyone know about you and I couldn't get away," Draco said.

"Don't worry so much about me. I have the life of a tree to entertain me; the chirping of the birds, the melodrama of the squirrels, and the pitter patter of little seedlings to tend to. I have a row of seedlings coming in all around the parameter of this clearing. I'll have trees ready for the whole family to come and join me when your human lives are through. Imagine it Draco: an entire forest full of Lord Malfoys going back five hundred years."

"Yes Grandfather, if only you can remember how it was you cast the spell," Draco replied indulgently.

"I'm working on it! See, I've been scratching my notes into the bark of that tree there." A willow branch reached out and tapped its neighboring tree, where there were indeed scratched symbols and words.

"Yes Grandfather," Draco replied.

"What spell?" I asked.

"Why the spell that allowed my essence to fuse with this tree, of course!" the tree replied.

"He doesn't know what spell he used? Can't you just look it up for him?" I asked Draco.

"No, he can't remember and he didn't write it down before he died. It was one of his own invention, so we can't look it up either. We've tried a pensieve, but none of us were there when he did it; he just sort of got up from his death bed and ran out here into the forest. We sent the elves looking for his body. When they found it, we came out here and there he was, in the tree," Draco explained.

"It was a bit of sudden genius in the madness of the fever. Dragon pox, you know. I had been working on the theory for decades and I had it all worked out in my head, only it never worked in practice. Then on my deathbed, something clicked and I just had it," the tree explained.

"Only problem is that his manner of death corrupted the memory. Something about turning yourself into a tree just isn't compatible with modern pensieve technology. So we can't get the memory from him to examine," Draco added.

"Oh…that's a real shame. This tree thing seems great. Is it somewhat like being a ghost?" I wondered, trying to make polite conversation.

"Oh no, nothing at all like a ghost. A ghost can never go on, nor can they grow or change; that's what makes my discovery so much better. You see, I can grow, live, and just be part of this tree. We are one. As long as it lives, I live. But the moment it dies, I die. When we die, I'll move _on_ and cease to be attached to this realm. A ghost, on the other hand, is static and has no way of ever moving _on_. A ghost gains immortality at the price of everything that makes this world worth having. I wanted to live to see my grandson grow up. I wanted to meet my great grandson. I wanted to help my son and impart my knowledge to my family. But when everyone I know and the children of everyone I know…when they are all dead, I'd like to go with them and move _on_. Someday I will," Abraxas said.

"Oh, that's really wonderful then," I said.

"And I can die anytime I want. Just ask the family to cut me down and off I go on the adventure into non-existence," Abraxas added.

"Speaking of family, has Grandmother Malfoy been by to visit you?" Draco asked.

"No, my boy, she hasn't. Is she alright?" Abraxas asked.

"I haven't heard from her since the end of the war," Draco replied.

"The war's over? We finally won? The Dark Lord killed that halfblood brat?" the tree asked.

"No…" Draco replied.

"Halfblood brat right here, at your service." My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"We lost Grandfather. The Dark Lord is dead, Father is in Azkaban, and Mother and I are under house arrest. That's why none of us have been able to see you. It's only now that I've become involved with Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, that I've been able to sneak away for a chat," Draco explained.

"We lost?" the tree asked uncomprehendingly.

"Yes Grandfather, we lost," Draco replied.

"And your father is in prison? For how long?"

"Five years. Harry got him leniency. He says he's going to help Mother and me win our cases. In fact, he's the one who arranged for us to be put on house arrest while we await our trials; otherwise we'd be in the crowded Ministry holding cells with the rest of the Death Eaters," Draco answered.

"And what of my Darwina? What has become of her?" Abraxas asked.

"She fled Grandfather. She went south, to France, to escape the war. But the war followed her south and she fled again. I have word that she escaped into a remote Romanian village in the mountains, where she's safe from both sides of the war. A lot of the elderly went there, so she's not alone. We haven't heard from her since the end of the war, but we think she's just lying low to keep under the Ministry's radar. Once the trials are over and Mother and I are free, I'm sure she'll come back," Draco answered.

"At least she's safe," Abraxas replied.

"She is; I know she is," Draco added.

"The crystal?" Abraxas asked.

Draco shook his head and neither of them bothered explaining what they were talking about now.

"Draco, there's one thing I don't understand," the tree said, changing the subject.

"What's that Grandfather?"

"How did you end up with Harry Potter? Even if we lost the war…I just can't imagine how you could have made such a change. Last time you were here telling me about him you were saying how much you hated him for stealing your wand from you. You've always hated him."

"The veela chose him Grandfather; he saved my life twice during the final battle. I tried to fight it, but…"

"It's okay Draco; it's not your fault."

"It's not?"

"It's not. If anything it's my fault for marrying someone with distant veela blood. Of course I never imagined that she had any veela left in her."

I was beginning to like this tree less and less. I didn't know if I could take much more of this racist tree and I figured it would be best to move things along. "Draco, it's getting late and I still wanted to talk to you about last night," I said.

"Alright," Draco agreed, looking at me and then back at the willow. "Grandfather, I don't know when Mother or I will be able to come again. Just know that we are safe and that we love you."

"I love you too Dragon; take care," the tree said. He closed his eyes and the face in the bark melted into nothingness.

"Come on, we'll go to the Malfoy Rubbish Pile to talk, that way you can honestly say I showed you it. It doesn't smell, I promise," Draco said, leading me through the forest. "Now the Malfoy Mulch Pile is a different matter."

We walked for some distance and I lost track of direction with all of the twists and turns. I was worried that Draco might be lost too, but then a tall mound broke through the trees. As we grew nearer, I discerned various bits of magical trash. There were wads of used parchment, broken quills, cracked bowls, torn socks, and a thousand years' worth of garbage.

Draco motioned towards a fallen tree and sat down. I sat down next to him, before he spoke. "What did you want to talk about, Harry?"

And this was it; this was the moment I was supposed to bring up _sex_. It was time to assure my boyfriend of my acceptant of veela sex and that his being a veela doesn't bother me. But sitting here, staring at the rubbish, I just couldn't find the words or the courage to speak them. Instead I asked a safer question. "Did you do it? You know, fertilize, the um, egg?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it took? I mean, maybe we should do it again. We need to make sure this egg gets fertilized."

"I'm fairly certain it took."

"How can you tell?"

"Veela instincts."

"Huh?"

"My instincts were urging me to mate, but this morning I had the urge to build a nest. By the way, I know the second gift is usually shoes or clothes, but what I really need is a veela grade incubator. From what I've read they make nesting _much_ easier."

"How soon will it come?" I was starting to freak out now that he was talking about nesting. I hadn't gotten past the pregnancy part, much less thought about preparations for after the delivery.

"Not for another three months."

"Whew... then we have time."

"Yes, we do have time, but I already feel anxious for it. I was going through everything in my room today and I couldn't find any decent nesting materials. I started plotting my nest out of dried up flower stems. I'm not allowed to get new things, so I really need you to help me out and bring them in."

"What sort of nesting materials?"

"Down feathers work well for a soft lining and twigs for the base."

"Well we can get feathers off of your peacocks and we're in a forest; there are twigs all around," I said, bending down to pick up the twig by my feet.

"I know; Grandfather gave me this one," he said, rolling back his sleeve to show a willow twig shoved up his sleeve. When he managed to do that, I do not know, but at least he wasn't trying to palm a weapon.

"Look, I don't want you to have to hide nesting materials. If there's something you want for your nest, just tell me and I'll get it for you. I don't want anyone to be able to say anything bad about your cooperation with the house arrest when your trial comes."

He nodded and looked down at his hands. It took me a moment to realize that he was probably nervous about the veela thing. I decided then that I really had to tell him that it was all fine by me as far as veela sex goes. I plucked up my courage, took his hands in my hands, and said, "Look, I'm really happy about this. I bet our egg is going to be wonderful. I'm sure it'll be brilliant and I can't wait. We're making a baby together and that's beautiful. I know that laying eggs isn't exactly typical human, but lots of things that aren't typical are still really great. Besides, live birth is so muggle."

The muggle crack I threw in as a joke, to break the tension. I'd probably hex anyone I heard saying such a horribly racist statement, but I thought it was the type of thing purebloods would find funny. Plus, I didn't actually think poorly of muggles for not laying eggs; I was just trying to make an insecure pregnant veela feel better about himself.

"Really? You're going to help me with this egg and this baby? You're not just going to save my life and leave me hanging out to dry?" he asked.

"No, never. I promise you and our baby that I'll be there for both of you."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now come on; let's gather some twigs while it's still light out."

"Yes, alright, but not from near this rubbish heap."

"There's nothing sacred or special about your trash, is there?" I asked as we walked away.

"Oh yes there is; it's utterly contaminated with magic. Sometimes, during the dead of night, it glows with past spells. But that mostly only happens near the summer and winter solstices."

"Right. I'll be sure to mention that fun fact to Harper and Ron, so they think we've actual been out looking at garbage this whole time."

"Thank you. I really appreciate you keeping my grandfather a secret."

I nodded and then got him talking about the perfect stick for this nest he was imagining.

* * *

Author's Note: So what do you think of Grandfather Willow? Draco is nesting already and next chapter I will skip ahead in time a bit.

Please Review!


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: I was just woken up in the middle of the night, by a phone call saying there is a two hour school delay, due to the snow. Why in Merlin's name do I need to be woken up _early_ to be told to come in _late_? Me thinks someone is snorting the snow. Anyway, my sleepless morning is your benefit, giving me the time to get this up.

* * *

Draco and I had been together a month now, which meant it was time for another grand courting gift. I'd already gotten him the expensive incubator he wanted, not so much as a courting gift but as a gift to celebrate the fact that he was pregnant with my child. He was anxious about not being prepared for the delivery of our egg and given that we only had three short months to get ready for it, I thought we might as well start preparing. I got him the incubator mostly to stop him from worrying so much and from stressing out over it. And if he counted it as a two week courting gift, then that was fine by me.

Most of my courting gifts were egg related these days. We were still having dates every evening, so instead of flowers, I started bringing nesting materials. We'd gone on several trips to the forest and out on the grounds to collect twigs and feathers, which he used to build a nest large enough for a fully formed veela egg. But I could tell he wasn't happy with it and his mother had indicated that he didn't feel the nest was grand enough for the Malfoy heir. There was something about the simple nest that made him feel less human. I tried to make him feel better and I told him several times that I thought his nest was great.

One evening I noticed him adding trinkets to his nest and was reminded of the special twig from his grandfather's tree that had started it all. It was then that I decided to go a different route and help him make a nest he could be proud of. The trinkets he added weren't terribly expensive, but they were things that meant something to him. There was a leaf he picked up on one of our dates. There was a piece of yarn that had pulled free from my favorite Weasley sweater. There was a scrap of parchment upon which I had written him a message, letting him know that I was still coming, but running late. Then there were things that were his, like his own baby blanket from when he was little and a swatch of his favorite, but now ruined, sweater. There were even a few of his own wing feathers, which I only knew were his because they were too black to be from the albino peacocks and too long to be from any of the other birds around here. And finally there were photos of his grandparents, all of them, whether alive or merged with a tree, in the nest.

And so I got the idea to start bringing him things for the nest as my daily courting gifts. First I brought photos of my parents. Then it was a twig from my first broom, my Nimbus 2000. After that there was a run of handkerchiefs, each made out of a different type of fabric, so he could decide which type would be best to line the nest with. Hermione sent me a piece of the Whomping Willow from Hogwarts, which I presented to him. Then there was an assortment of twigs from various types of trees, so that he could decide which the best type to use for nest construction was.

I happened to be assigned to a case at work in which we confiscated a breeding pair of occamies and their three molting chicks; the chicks were shedding their newborn down, which was exceedingly soft and made of pure silver. I gathered up those feathers and brought them to Draco for the nest as well. He liked them better than the rest of the soft materials he had, so after that the cloth and peacock feathers were removed from the nest and replaced with the occamy feathers.

Fleur gave me a couple of twigs, sent to her by her grandmother, who she had told about us. The twigs were from a veela tree, which was some special hardwood variety cultivated by veela for thousands of years for use in their nests. They had a nice, fresh smell to them when I presented them to Draco. He immediately fell in love with the new twigs and demanded enough to build an entire nest out of them. Those twigs turned out to be hard to come by in Britain, but Fleur had relatives in France with trees in their yards. They let me floo over and harvest them for free, but each tree only had a few harvestable twigs, so I had to visit a dozen different relatives to get enough for one nest.

And so the nest was mostly veela twigs and occamy feathers now, although the trinkets and willow twigs had been retained. Draco was much happier with it, which was all that mattered to me. But the nest was pretty much built and I still needed courting gifts, especially for our one month anniversary. According to pureblood tradition, this was a big deal and should be commemorated with an extravagant gift, such as jewelry. Of course the gift suggestions were meant for a witch and I didn't think he'd much appreciate a pair of earrings, since he didn't even have pierced ears. Thus I was faced with the challenge of coming up with the perfect extravagant piece of jewelry.

Luckily I had help from Hermione, who after a bit of input from me, came up with the perfect idea. Draco's house arrest came with one major inconvenience for me: he wasn't allowed to communicate, not even with me. I had to rely on his guards to pass messages between us or I had to stop by in person. As an Auror, I often ran into his guards at work, but they didn't tend to happen to be at the Ministry when I needed a message sent to him. Sometimes it worked out, but most of the time it was a major inconvenience.

His communication ban wasn't just inconvenient though, it was downright dangerous. What if something went wrong with the pregnancy? What if he needed to be taken to hospital and his guards, for whatever reason, refused to take him? What if he went into labor? What if he was feeling rejected by his mate? There were a million things that could go wrong and as long as he couldn't call me for help, that was a problem. I wasn't one of his guards anymore, so I couldn't just sit around Malfoy Manor protecting him; I had to go to work.

When I wasn't with Draco, I worried about him, which is where Hermione's gift idea came in. She had been doing some research on amulets in the library when she happened across one type that sounded useful. This particular piece of jewelry was capable of transferring information from one pendant to its twin pendant. It could only relay three things, fear, distress, and life force, but those were three valuable pieces of information to me. If Draco was afraid or distressed in any way, I wanted to know. And if his life force was affected, I wanted to know that too. If he wore one pendant and I wore the twin, then I would always know how he was, even without him telling me, even when we were miles apart. It was perfect.

These charmed pendants were rare and expensive too, which made them perfect for courting gifts. There was a magical jewelry store in Diagon alley and the clerk was able to track down a dealer for me who had a pair of pendants charmed with this particular spell. The jewelry clerk arranged to take delivery of the pendants, for a fee, and transferred my payment to the dealer. I picked up the pendants the Saturday before our anniversary; our anniversary not being until that Thursday.

After the jewelry shop, I made a stop by Madam Malkin's to pick up the paternity robes I'd ordered. I still needed daily courting gifts and clothing was an acceptable gift. Plus with the way his waist was expanding, he really needed the robes. This wasn't a typical human pregnancy at all, because it was an egg growing inside of him and responsible for his bloated waistline. Eggs could grow much faster than babies and they would have to, given that an egg large enough to hold a fifteen month old fetus was to come out of him three months after conception. He was already putting on weight before the conception and now, just three weeks in, he had a small bump.

It was expected that he'd look full term in just another two months, which meant now was the time to purchase paternity clothes. He wouldn't need a ton of clothes, because it was only for a few months, nor would he need a full wardrobe, because of his house arrest. There were only six guards, his mother, and me who saw him regularly, and the elves cleaned his clothes every day, so he didn't need all that much. Thus I only ordered two sets of robes, two sets of pajamas, and a pack of briefs for him. The rest of his clothes, like socks and shoes, he didn't need to get larger. Well maybe he'd need a new sweater for our dates outside, but Molly was already almost done with one for him.

After Diagon Alley, I dropped my shopping off in my room at the Burrow. With me and Ron being the only children currently at home, I had my own room. Ron had offered to share with me, but it wasn't needed, because I'd been moved into Percy's old room. With the amount of courting gifts I went through, I had the gift bags and decorative ribbons permanently set up on my dresser.

Draco had been complaining about how uncomfortable his pajamas were to sleep in, so I chose a pair of the pajamas as today's gift. Once it was wrapped, I popped into the kitchen to let Molly know where I was going, and then apparated over to Malfoy Manor. When I got to the second floor, Draco and Jackson weren't in the parlor where they normally waited for me, so I knocked on Draco's bedroom door.

Jackson let me in and said, "He's in the loo; been in there for hours."

I thanked Jackson for the information and knocked on the bathroom door. "Draco, it's me. Is something wrong?" I asked.

"Harry?" Draco's voice called from the other side of the door.

While I was talking, Jackson ducked out of the room, probably relieved to have a break.

"Yes. Are you okay?" I asked.

"Could you, er, provide me with another…ah…sample?"

"A sample? As in an ejaculate sample?"

"Yes…"

"Why? I thought you said the first time took?" I was beginning to panic. I'd been thinking all this time that he was pregnant—he definitely seemed further along than what he'd been last time when he had the miscarriage—but why would he need my ejaculate if he was already pregnant? And why was he hiding in the bathroom? Was he starting to have a miscarriage and thought he could stop it with some more ejaculate? That didn't even make sense…

"It did."

"Then why do you need it?"

"I just do, alright?"

"No, it's not alright. If you're having a miscarriage I want you to tell me."

"I'm not."

"Then what is going on?"

He let the silence hang in the air for several minutes and I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but then he did. "I'm just needing my mate. These stupid urges will go away if you'll kindly provide me with another sample."

"Alright, I'll go make one, but it'll take me some time."

He said that was fine and then I went to the guest bathroom. Lacey provided me with the same cracked bowl I used last time and I repeated the process of ejaculating into a bowl. As soon as I was done and had cleaned up, I took the bowl to Draco, who was still in the loo. He cracked the door open and reached around for the bowl, but wouldn't let me come in. He asked me to wait out in the parlor while he did his business. I agreed and walked to the bedroom door, closing it loudly, but then tiptoed back to the bathroom door. I sat down on the floor and listened in.

Listening to a private moment like this was probably a violation of his privacy, but in my defense, if it wasn't me, it'd be Jackson. If I left the room, Jackson was supposed to come back in. Sure Jackson wasn't interested in Draco sexually and wouldn't have been listening at the bathroom door, but I didn't feel too bad about that, because Draco was pregnant with my baby; I had a right to know what was going on, didn't I? This was the second time I'd provided him with a semen sample and I was _dying_ to know what he did with it.

Obviously he was applying it to his cloaca, but was he also masturbating with it? Was it enough to just slop it on? Was he putting it on and making himself cum? Or was it that there was a waiting period in which he had to leave it there, but that he wasn't actually masturbating with it? I really wanted to know. Last time he'd sent me home before he did it, so I had no clue how long it took, much less any of the other details. I was sure he'd never tell me, so this was my only chance to find out; thus the snooping.

Within a few minutes I started hearing noises from the other side of the door. It began with heavy breathing and then there was the wet sound of skin slipping across skin. It was really hot, even though I'd just came, so I stayed silent and continued to listen. It went on like that for a while, before there was a silent period in which I thought he might be done. I was edging towards the bedroom door, preparing to make it look like I'd just come back in, when the noises picked up again. There was moaning this time too, so I edged back towards the door to listen.

Veela masturbation apparently took longer than it took me to do it, because he was moaning behind that door for quite some time before I heard the clear signs of his orgasm. Once he went quiet again, I resumed my slow creeping towards the door. He didn't come out right away and I thought for sure that he would emerge any minute now, so I decided to act before I got caught.

I opened the bedroom door and called out, "Draco, Jackson said that you're taking too long and I'm to check on you. Is it alright if I come back in now?"

He called back his agreement through the bathroom door. I closed the bedroom door again and sat down in a chair that was on the other side of the room from the bathroom door and waited. It wasn't long before the sound of running water could be heard, indicating that he was washing up. He took forever in the bath, so I had time to think while I sat there. It occurred to me then that I still hadn't had a talk with him about sex. I'd told him how happy I was about the egg thing, but not the rest of it. For all he knew, I was going to make fun of him if he showed me his cloaca or I'd dump him when I found out we couldn't have real sex. I was going to have to change that and tell him how I really feel.

Half an hour later, he _finally_ came out of the bathroom fully dressed. We went out to the parlor, because being alone with one's boyfriend in the bedroom was against pureblood protocol. He went straight to the gift bag with his pajamas that I'd left on the coffee table; he always liked to start the date with his present. His eyes lit up when he saw them, then he thanked me with a kiss on the lips.

"Do you want to go outside for a walk?" he asked, setting the pajamas back in the bag on the table.

I wouldn't mind going for a walk and we probably could have this little talk outside, but I knew I'd probably chicken out or get distracted if we did that. "Later. First there is something I want to talk to you about."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Sex."

"Look, I'm not a pervert. I've been having certain urges, which I've been ignoring like a proper pureblood. But I was reading last night that the female veela needs her mate present for a successful pregnancy. I'd read that before, of course, but I thought it just meant his presence, not sex. But the book I was reading last night said that the veela actually senses the father's presence through sex. I thought I could take care of the urges on my own, but that didn't-"

I decided then to cut him off. "It's okay. I don't think you're perverted."

"You don't?"  
"No, I don't. If you need another bowl, then that's fine with me, really. I was only concerned that there was something wrong with the baby, otherwise I wouldn't have questioned you on it."

"Oh…good."

"But it did remind me that I wanted to talk to you about sex. I know that…um, our bits are…er not fully compatible…ah sexually. Whenever it comes up, you're always so…"

"Proper?" he supplied.

"Yes, er, proper…about it and I thought that maybe that that was why." I paused, hoping that he'd say something, but he remained silent and waited for me to continue. "I want you to know that I know things aren't going to work the same down there as with typical couples, but that's fine with me. I'm attracted to you, Draco Malfoy, the human and the veela, and if that means sex goes a bit differently, well then that's fine. It'll still be good, because it's you."

"So you don't mind that there won't be any penetration?"  
"No, I don't," I said, but he still looked skeptical. "It's fine, really. I don't care that you don't have a penis; for me it's more that your body is shaped like a man's, your face is handsome, you're attractive, and you keep me on my toes." Being a virgin myself, I didn't have much experience with actual cock. The closest I'd gotten to another man's penis was dancing at a muggle night club; what that club called dancing was basically dry humping to music. I wouldn't miss what I'd never had, would I?

"Seriously? You don't mind not having sex at all?" he asked skeptically.

"No, because we'll be able to do, er…other stuff."

"Like what?"

I stared at him in surprise for a minute before I decided that this was a test. If I said anal penetration, he'd know I hadn't done my homework on veela. If I said oral sex, then that was rather presumptuous given his pureblood morals. I didn't know whether he was of the pureblood school that was pro oral sex or against, so I wasn't willing to risk it. Instead I stuck to the one thing I knew we could do. "Ah, our hands. We can use our hands to, er, pleasure each other," I finally answered.

That must've been an acceptable answer, because he nodded.

That concluded our sex talk and we went outside for a walk. It was a windy day. He mentioned a fondness for flying kites and revealed that there was a pair of magical kites in the broom shed, so that is what we did. We were still just as competitive as ever and with a pair of trick kites, it turned into a contest, which revived the old Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry until the chill of the wind forced us back inside.

* * *

Author's Notes: I was running out of activities for the two of them to do while stuck at Malfoy Manor; flying kites was the only thing left I could think of. I think this chapter, with the spying on the masturbation, is about as sexually explicit as this story gets. What rating to you think that qualifies as? Personally, I would say teen, but I've rated this story as mature so far, to be on the safe side. Should I lower it, or is mature the right rating?

Next chapter I will skip ahead to the egg-laying…


	9. Chapter 9

I took the week Draco was expected to go into labor off from work. With veela, the window of delivery was tighter, especially when the exact day and time of conception was known. The expert healer I'd hired from France at Fleur's suggestion (Draco hadn't liked Healer Balev) said that it was almost guaranteed that Draco would give birth within this one week window. Actually, the term she'd used was, "Lay ze egg," but Draco didn't like to refer to the process in such birdlike terms, so his mother and I were always careful to use the human equivalent.

All of the time I was spending with Draco meant that I was spending a great deal of time with Narcissa as well. She'd saved my life and I felt a deep debt of gratitude towards her. That translated to politeness on my part, which was returned in equal measure on hers, and we had developed a friendship. She had even asked me to call her Cissy, which was what she said everyone called her. I complied and the two of us were now joined in our commitment to get Draco through the birth unscathed.

Draco was huge now. He reached the point where he looked to be full-term weeks ago. We were all pretty worried about how big he was getting, unfamiliar with the veela birthing process as we were, but the veela healer said it was normal. Because veela offspring stay in their eggs six months longer than human babies, the egg had to be correspondingly larger. Therefore, Draco's gigantic belly that was so large he could barely walk, was normal.

I spent my first two days off, catering to Draco's every need and whim. His regular guards were still there, cleaning up after him and delivering the elf-cooked meals, but there were many things they didn't feel like it was their job to do. For example, he now needed help getting from his bed to the bathroom. Cissy helped with all of the personal stuff, like getting him dressed, but she didn't have a wand and wasn't strong enough to carry him; I wasn't strong enough to carry him either, because that egg inside him weighed a ton. Before the guards were levitating him into the bathroom for Cissy, but now that I was around, that was my job.

Draco spent most of his time in bed these days, so I didn't do a lot of levitating him around, besides the hourly bathroom trips. Mostly I stayed near the bed and tried to make him comfortable; there was something about having a giant egg inside one's body that was inherently uncomfortable. He couldn't lie on his back anymore, without the egg pushing down on his veins and arteries and interfering with blood flow. The egg was so heavy that he couldn't stay on either side for long before needing to turn.

Oddly enough, lying on his stomach was the most comfortable option, because it meant that the egg wasn't being pulled down onto his internal organs by gravity. But balancing him on his stomach was a challenge, so I spent a good deal of my time arranging his pillows. I wedged in one on either side of his stomach, two under his thighs, another two under his legs, and two under his chest. He still wanted to see what was going on, so that meant that his head was facing the foot of the bed, with his feet towards the headboard. I spent a good bit of the day kneeled at the foot of the bed, in front of his head, talking to him.

The rest of my day was spent doing things like massaging his swollen feet, rubbing his aching back and shoulders, and applying a special veela skin ointment to his belly. Without that magical ointment, his skin would've stretched beyond its limit long ago, due to the speed his waist was expanding. With the ointment, he didn't even have stretch marks. But it wasn't just the stretch marks the ointment treated, because there was also a great deal of itching, burning, and bruising sensations that went along with expanding the skin so rapidly and forcing it to take the weight of an egg sitting on top of it, and the ointment relieved all of that discomfort as well.

Then there was the volume of food to deal with, which he had to eat each day to support the growing egg. All of the nutrients the baby would need for the next year had to be stored within that egg before leaving his body. That meant that he had to consume a prodigious amount of food. But his appetite was slowing and waning already, now that the shell was forming. Once the shell is in place, the baby is walled off from his body, preventing further uptake of nutrients. That also meant that he probably wouldn't grow any bigger, thank Merlin, before the birth. But back when the egg was still growing, he was eating high calorie foods almost constantly.

The first warning sign I had that he was going to go into labor, was on the second night when Draco said, "Harry, I feel weird."

"Feel weird? Weird like how? Pain? Are you having contractions?" I asked quickly in my panic.

"No, not pain or contractions. More achy and bloated."

"Oh, so what's that mean? You want me to rub your feet?"

"No, I want to take a bath. A real bath, not you cleaning me with a spell," he said.

He hadn't had a real bath in weeks, because of the logistics of getting him into the tub and his modesty. I wasn't sure how that was going to work now. I could levitate him into the tub, but would he let me undress him? Would he want me to see his body naked? I'd seen his stomach naked—I had to in order to rub the ointment on it—but I'd never seen his bottom half without clothes. It seemed unlikely that he would get through the birth without me seeing anything, given that the egg had to come out of his most private part, but I was hoping we wouldn't get to that until he was too knocked out on pain potions to care.

When I did nothing but dither around for a minute, he said, "Get my mother."

Cissy would surely be crucial in any bathing attempt, given that she was the last one to bathe him back when he could still walk and get into the tub on his own. She was also the one who dressed him and helped him navigate the toilet, once levitated into the loo.

I nodded to Draco and then to Erickson, the guard who replaced me, who was sitting by the door. Erickson stood up to take my place by the bed, not out of some desire to ensure Draco was alright, but out of duty. It was Erickson's job to watch Draco and if there was a complication with Draco or the egg on his watch, he was responsible for apparating them to St. Mungo's. Normally prisoners would be taken to the nurse at the Ministry Holding Facility, but I'd gotten special permission from Kingsley for Draco to go to St. Mungo's. Not that Draco wanted to go to St. Mungo's, because he was insistent on a home birth, likely because of his aversion to letting anyone see him in the process of birthing an egg. But if he needed to be taken someone, it would be a real hospital and not the dinky clinic kept for prisoners.

I was back with Cissy in a minute, with her guard Backer. Backer was Ron's replacement and he took Erickson's chair when he came in. I levitated Draco into the bathtub, with Cissy carefully guiding his body so that he didn't hit the doorjamb. Then I was kicked out as she undressed him and started the bath. I was let back in fifteen minutes later when he was surrounded by a tub full of hot water and copious bubbles. He was sitting hunched over in the water, with his back bent and his giant belly resting heavily on his thighs. I didn't think the bubbles were necessary to cover his bits, because even a pair of boxer shorts would probably be covered by his belly. But maybe the bubbles were to cover his rear.

"How is he doing…?" I asked, referring to the fact that he was sitting up when he hadn't tried sitting up in days. Ever since the egg started solidifying, he found the hard mass uncomfortable to sit with.

"He's fine. If you want you could wash his back," Cissy suggested, holding out a white washcloth.

I thus went to work rubbing his back with a soapy washcloth. He wasn't dirty, because I'd just cleaned him with a spell not two hours ago, so I concentrated on massaging his tender areas and not on cleaning. While I did his back, Cissy did his front. Once we had him relaxed, she got him dressed and I levitated him back into the bed.

That night I slept on a cushioning charm on the floor by his bed, like I'd done the night before, because I was too worried that he might go into labor in the middle of the night to sleep in the comfy guest bed down the hall. I was even more worried that night and I must've woken up two dozen times to check on him. Other than his multiple trips to the toilet, he slept through the night.

I woke up in the morning to the sound of Draco's scream. I took two leaps to the foot of the bed and saw his face contorted in pain. His hands were pushing at the pillows underneath him, trying to change his position.

"What's wrong? Do you want to roll over?" I asked, slightly panicked.

"Get me a pain potion noooow!" The last word turned into another scream.

I looked at Jackson, who was the guard on duty, sitting in his chair. He nodded back and took off to get the pain potion. Knowing their usual schedules, he probably just switched position on that chair with Harper.

"Draco, what's wrong? Are you in labor?" I asked, moving to help pull away the pillows he was still pushing at.

"Yessss," he hissed, clutching a hand to his belly now that he could reach it. With several key pillows gone, his balance on his stomach was precarious and he fell over onto his side, trapping his arm underneath him. He took several deep, panting breaths, before he began to relax again. "Help me turn over."

I did as requested, repositioning the pillows to support his new position on his side. Then Jackson was back with the pain potion and I helped Draco drink it. After that he asked for his mother, so Jackson went to fetch her.

Cissy came rushing into the room followed by her guard Sheffield. "Get Madame Thibeaux, Harry," she said, going straight to Draco's side and checking him over.

Madame Thibeaux was the specialist veela healer. It made sense to get her, in fact I should've thought of that myself, but I didn't. I agreed rapidly, told Draco I'd be right back with his healer, and apparated over to her office in France. It was still early and I worried that she wouldn't be there yet. She wasn't, but her secretary was. I told the secretary, she fire-called the healer, and Madame Thibeaux agreed to meet me back at the Manor right away.

I apparated back to Malfoy Manor. While I'd been away, Cissy had been at work changing Draco. I knew he hated the sight of the birthing gown he wore, but the healer really would need to check his progress, so something that could be pulled up was absolutely necessary. It was the type of baggy nightgown they sell for expectant women, except that I'd gotten the plainest one I could find; it was white with a few ugly pleats around the collar, but thankfully no lace, ribbons, or bows; I'd gone to a lot of work to find something without lace, ribbons, bows, or cutesy patterns, but couldn't find any that were masculine.

Madame Thibeaux arrived fifteen minutes after me and went right to work checking on Draco. He was fine and hadn't had a second contraction yet. She was an efficient woman who wore her long greying brown hair back in a tight bun. She had on a white lab coat over her robes and kept her wand in a holster on her left forearm.

Next Madame Thibeaux set up the room for the delivery. She came with a black healer's bag, which obviously had a wizard-space charm on it, because she pulled everything anyone could ever need to deliver an egg, or perform major surgery, out of it. She pulled out a metal table on wheels, which she covered with a blue cloth, before covering it in potion vials, tubs of ointments, and shiny metal instruments. I recognized a scalpel among the mix and I hoped to Merlin we didn't need it. She added a large bowl of water and a stack of towels, completing the set up.

Then the waiting started. It was punctuated by contractions and plenty of misery on Draco's part, but mostly not a lot happened. Every hour or so, Madame Thibeaux checked his progress, but that was extremely slow going. The time passed by at a snail's pace, especially with the way he complained about everything. All his moaning and griping boiled down to only a few basic complaints: he was in pain, he was miserable, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he had to pee, and he didn't actually have to pee, but felt like he had to.

It was late afternoon before Madame Thibeaux announced that we were getting close. Oh it would still be hours more, but the egg was definitely coming. It was then that Draco remembered the incubator and suddenly wanted it set up right that minute. I would've set it up two months ago if he would've let me, but he'd said it was too early then. I probably should've set it up yesterday or the day before, but I hadn't thought of it then. I didn't really want to leave his side to figure out something so complex, but I did.

I went to the parlor with the incubator, so that it'd be quiet while I worked. Only I didn't get very far into it before I realized that I was missing something. On the very first page, right under the list of included parts, was a little note in tiny font that power crystals were sold separately. The incubator needed a power crystal to hold the magic that powered the machine; the crystals had to be recharged every day, but it'd keep the egg warm for at least twenty-four hours, which was better than casting a warming charm every hour or so. I wished it would've said the crystals weren't included on the box, because I would've bought one while I was at the store if I'd known. I hadn't even seen any power crystals at the store. But it was growing late and I wanted to get one before the stores close for the night, so I went into action.

I took the instruction booklet to Draco's room and asked the women for help. Madame Thibeaux seemed to think that the best place to get power crystals was Germany, where the incubators were made. Everywhere else was liable to be out of them or only carry the smaller crystals, which wouldn't last for nearly as long as the large one. She seemed to think there was an extra-large variety available at this one particular store that would power the incubator for days at a time, possibly even a week.

When Wiltshire was where I really wanted to be, I apparated back to the Burrow, since Malfoy Manor had been disconnected from the floo network. I yelled out my news to Molly as I walked to her fireplace and then I flooed over to the German equivalent of the Leaky Cauldron. From there I dashed over to the little shop that specialized almost exclusively in magical power crystals. Germany was ahead of Britain with regards to time zones, so the shop was already closed for the night. Luckily the little old sales witch lived above the store and agreed to reopen for me and then helped me find the largest power crystal she had in stock. It wasn't the largest ever made, according to her, but at an average of five days' worth of magical power for something like an incubator, it was definitely one of the larger ones. I paid, left a good sized tip for her help, and made my way back to Malfoy Manor.

The first thing I did when I arrived was to let everyone know that I was back. The guards were waiting in Draco's room, but Draco had been moved into the tub. Madame Thibeaux had him reclined in the tub, resting on some sort of water proof pillow. She was in the tub, between his legs, checking him down there. I couldn't see exactly what she was doing, because she had a towel draped over his lap. It was a white towel, but there were red blotches on it and the water had turned pink, as if from blood.

Cissy was running a washcloth over his forehead and she looked up at me when I entered.

"I got it. What's going on? What happened?" I asked concerned.

"Nothing too terrible, just a bit of a tear," Cissy said.

"Eet iz perfectly normal for first time motherz to tear az ze egg comes down. Eet iz such a very large egg. I've applied ze ointment to heal ze tear and I'm rubbing in another ointment to help ze flesh stretch. Perhapz next time I suggest something my patient will take my advice," Madame Thibeaux said. She had a thick French accent.

"Draco! You promised me you would cooperate with Madame Thibeaux!" I exclaimed. We'd had a long discussion about healers and I'd let him choose whomever he wanted, just as long as he agreed to listen to whomever he chose. He'd picked her, not so much out of admiration for her work, but out of extreme dislike for all of the other choices.

"Let's see you cooperate with her when she's suggesting sticking her hand up your bum to rub in ointment. Not just squirt it in there, but actively work it in," he replied with a scathing look.

"Eet requirez such to function properly," Thibeaux replied sweetly.

"Yeah, whatever. Go finish the incubator before this egg gets here, Harry," he said.

I had no particular desire to watch something Draco felt embarrassed by; not when it wasn't the actual birth. Thus I took the power crystal back to the parlor and started on the incubator. Putting it together was a lot of work, made all the harder by stress and my anxiety to get it finished right away. It was an extremely complex piece of magical equipment, the likes of which I haven't seen assembled since Dudley's bicycle when I was little. Of course Uncle Vernon had ended up taking that thing back to the store and paying for assembly, because it was too much for him. Consequently, I felt pretty smug when I finally finished the incubator.

I brought the incubator into Draco's room and set it up on his dresser, next to the nest. He was back on his bed, lying on his back, with the women watching over him.

"Ah, why is he on his back?" I asked, remembering he'd gone on about how horrible it was the last time I'd suggested it.

"Ze egg haz moved lower. Eet iz no longer crushing him when he iz on hiz back," Thibeaux said.

"That's good. How much longer?" I asked.

"I want my grandmother! Harry, go get her please!" Draco said in what sounded more like a demand than a request.

"I don't know where she is. Didn't you say she's out of the country?" I asked.

"No, not Grandmother Malfoy, Grandmother Black. I want Grandfather Black too," he replied.

"Alright, where do I find them?"

"My parents live at Black Gardens just outside of Torquay. You can take the floo or ask my sister Andromeda for help getting there," Cissy suggested.

Cissy hadn't been in touch with her sister in many years. I knew she wanted to change that, but she was still on house arrest. It would have to wait until after the trial.

I complied, apparating to Dromeda's house this time. Molly had apparently told Dromeda the news, because she asked about Draco and the baby before I could even get in her front door. I updated her quickly and then requested her help picking up her parents. She agreed, putting Teddy on her hip and I grabbed his nappy bag. We flooed over to Black Gardens, which was a seaside estate with a large atrium in the middle of the house. One side of the living room had windows overlooking the sea and the other side had windows into the atrium filled with roses. Beyond the flowers, I could see a fountain and then more house.

Mister and Madam Black weren't happy to see me, Dromeda, or Teddy. But once they got past their dislike of us and listened to my news that Draco was in labor and wanted to see them, they were much more agreeable. They had to change out of their night robes and house slippers, Madam Black had to grab her purse and wig, Mister Black had to put in his teeth, and then they were ready for the journey back to the Manor.

I didn't have permission for Draco's family to visit, so they waited in the drawing room on the first floor while I went upstairs to clear thing with Aurors Erickson and Backer. But when I got up there I found out that Draco had already had the egg and was passed out from exhaustion. The egg was resting comfortably in the nest inside the incubator. I thought the last egg was pretty, but this egg was gorgeous. The swirling pattern was gold and popped against the ivory of the shell. The egg itself was huge; over a foot and a half tall and a foot at its widest point. It was the type of thing that seemed absolutely incredible for it to have come out of a human body.

With Draco asleep, Erickson and Backer suggested I take the egg downstairs so that I wouldn't have to break Auror protocol. Cissy seconded that idea, so that is what I did. By the time I got the egg downstairs, Dromeda was gone and Madam Black was holding Teddy. Mister Black explained that his daughter had gone to get Minister Shacklebolt to authorize this little impromptu family reunion, which was probably a good idea, because Draco would still want to see his grandparents.

I showed off my egg, which all of the Blacks, including Teddy, cooed over. Teddy must've felt inspired by the egg, because he changed his blond hair to golden. He was getting so big these days; he wasn't crawling yet, but he had three teeth, and could sit up and pull himself up to standing as long as he had something to cling to. Madam Black seemed grandmotherly enough with Teddy; so much so that it was hard to believe that this was the same woman who'd disowned Dromeda. I'd been expecting Sirius' mum all over again and that isn't what I got. Mister Black was a sterner man who didn't seem warm or friendly towards Teddy, but maybe that was just because he couldn't get a chance to hold him with the way his wife was hogging the baby. But then Madam Black agreed to hold the egg and passed Teddy over to Mister Black and Mister Black seemed fine with that.

"Oi, no-aht my tee," Mister Black cried, pulling Teddy's hand off of his dentures. "You've got three of your own; leave your Great Grandfather's teeth alone, okay Sprout?"

"He did the same with my wig; I bet he senses the magic in them," Madam Black replied, looking up from the egg.

It wasn't long after that when Dromeda returned with Kingsley Shacklebolt in tow. Kingsley informed me that the Black family reunion was on, while Dromeda took Teddy from her father. I took my egg back from Madam Black and the group of us made our way up the stairs, with the Minister of Magic in the lead. We hung out in the parlor until Draco woke up an hour later. Draco was pretty tired, but he was hungry, in pain, and he still wanted to see his grandparents.

The Blacks greeted Draco warmly. Though he was exhausted, Draco sat up and held a conversation with his grandparents, listening intently as his mother asked his grandparents how they were doing, since the house arrest prevented visits. The Blacks had the usual complaints of the elderly, but were much more interested in the goings on around Malfoy Manor and even how Dromeda was coping with the loss of Ted and Nymphadora. They were strangely interested in Teddy and all of his developmental milestones, despite years of estrangement from their middle daughter. At one point Mister Black actually apologized for unspecified errors he'd made in the past. Then Madam Black said that they weren't getting any younger and wanted to set things right before they died.

Dromeda seemed agreeable, but I could tell she was holding back; she'd been too hardened by loss to forgive so quickly. She may have been willing to do Draco and me a favor by getting her parents and then Kingsley, but she needed more than a few hours of civility to be convinced.

It was two hours later when we finally got Draco back to sleep and the guests out the door. The egg was tucked away in its nest and I had a new hope for a reconciliation between Dromeda and her parents.

Madame Thibeaux stayed that night to keep an eye on Draco and make sure the bleeding didn't start up again. The egg didn't need any more care than the incubator could provide. Thus my presence wasn't required and I took advantage of that fact to sleep in a proper bed in the guest bedroom. It turned out to be an extremely comfortable bed and after the day I had, I slept like a rock. A rock with a brand new little baby rock in the next room.

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Author's Note: So there's the birth! There will be a twist in the next chapter and the excitement will really begin…

Please Review!


	10. Chapter 10

In the month that followed Draco and I grew closer as we spent time together with our egg. It didn't do much, but there was still something about taking it out of the nest and holding it to my chest that I loved. It really was a beautiful and captivating egg and I could spend hours staring at it and imagining the child that was growing inside; my child with Draco. I knew he felt the same way about our egg and with that came a shared understanding between us. We stopped having so many misunderstandings and we started progressing in our relationship.

I was preparing to ask Draco to marry me. The ring was ordered and I was planning the perfect dinner. I was still waffling back and forth on when to ask him, but I knew it would be soon.

And then work interfered. Robards called Ron and me into his office to inform us of our new assignment. It was a reward for our outstanding performance on our last assignment, he said, but it didn't sound like a reward to me. It was a challenging assignment, which was good, but it was out of the country, which was very bad. They'd uncovered evidence against Grafere Skeeter, Rita Skeeter's husband, indicating that he had joined the Death Eaters before Voldemort's fall. It fit right in with the type of pro-Death Eater stuff Rita Skeeter had been publishing and he was a pureblood with ties to several known Death Eaters. Furthermore, he'd run off at the end of the war and hadn't been seen in Great Britain since, which screams guilty to anyone in law enforcement.

The Grafere assignment was just the type of thing I would love to get my hands on. The problem, however, was that Grafere was last seen in the small country of Kyrgyzstan. It was a Russian speaking country in Central Asia that was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Located in a rugged, mountainous area, it was just the type of place a Death Eater on the run might go to hide. Especially one with a Turkish mother who had traveled through the region as a child. But, it was also more than forty-three hundred miles away from Draco and our egg.

Kyrgyzstan was so far away that Ron and I couldn't reach it by floo. And neither of us had ever been anywhere near there, which ruled out apparition; even if we had been there before, it would take five separate apparition jumps to get there, because of the sheer distance, which meant we would also need to have been to five intermediate apparition locations along the way. Traveling by muggle means, with a train or a car, would take entirely too long. And when all other means of transportation are ruled out, that leaves the portkey, which was why we grabbed hold of a mankey old jacket in London and were transported to the slope of a mountain in Kyrgyzstan.

We landed in sight of a wizarding inn, where we booked a room and pulled out our map of the area and the case file. First on our list of things to do was to track down the witness who had reported seeing Grafere three months previously. Unfortunately Hamid Usenov didn't even speak Russian, which meant we had to first find a translator who could translate the local language, Kyrgyz, into English. This mission would go much more smoothly if either Ron or I spoke one of the two languages common to the area, Kyrgyz or Russian, but we didn't. I'd pointed this out to Robards when he gave us the assignment, but Robards had pointed out that he was scraping the bottom of the Auror barrel already given the number of Aurors who'd been lost during the war. That meant that there were no Russian speaking Aurors left and there'd never been any Kyrgyz speaking Aurors, so Ron and I were just as qualified as anyone else for the job.

We'd been in Kyrgyzstan for just under three hours and had a solid lead on a potential translator when I felt it: the pendant hanging around my neck sent fear and distress racing through me. It was Draco's fear and distress, I knew, because that was how the pendants worked.

I stopped in my tracks and said to Ron, "We need to get home right away. Something's wrong with Draco."

"What? We can't go! We're supposed to be on assignment here!" Ron protested. "And it's way too bloody far to pop over for a chat. We can't get back until our pre-arranged portkey in two weeks."

"He's afraid and distressed; I have to get back to him now," I insisted.

"Well how do you propose we do that? We still haven't been to five places evenly spaced between here and home and the floo here isn't connected that far. The train will take so long that we might as well finish our mission and take the portkey back in two weeks."

"We'll find a way. Come on; let's go back to the inn and floo to the Central Eurasian Ministry of Magic."

Ron went along with my plan and we turned our brooms around. The Central Eurasian Ministry of Magic was a bad joke. Their floos weren't connected to anywhere worth going and they were too poor to afford a portkey service, which meant they didn't even have a portkey technician who we could pay to arrange a portkey for us. The furthest west they could get us was the western edge of Russia. I looked at the map and Moscow jumped out at me. Moscow was a major city and bound to have a way for us to get from there to the United Kingdom.

We flooed to Moscow and spent several hours looking for a portkey specialist who could get us home, but it seemed portkeys weren't very popular in this part of the world. They were too expensive and too uncomfortable and thus there was only one portkey specialist in all of Moscow and she happened to be on vacation and unavailable. We were all but stranded in Russia with no way to get home, while Draco and our egg were back in Wiltshire and still under distress.

Time was passing too quickly with too little progress. I had to get home and I couldn't take the frustration anymore. If the wizarding world couldn't get me home, then I'd just have to go muggle. I dragged Ron with me to the Moscow airport, where we presented our fake muggle passports, which we were required to carry with us at all times, just in case we were caught by muggles. There was the small matter of money, but a confundus charm to their electronic device took care of that. There was some waiting around in the airport for our plane to arrive and then we were on a non-stop Moscow to London flight scheduled to land in just under three hours.

Ron and I disapparated from the men's bathroom in Heathrow International Airport straight to the grounds outside Malfoy Manor. I ran at top speed up the driveway to the house, leaving Ron in my wake. I would've ran all the way up to Draco's room, but Auror Ferrell was there in the entry hall, blocking my progress.

"What's going on? Where's Draco? Is he alright?" I asked.

"Draco Malfoy has been taken to the Ministry Holding Facility along with Narcissa Malfoy," Ferrell answered.

"What? Why? He's on house arrest and his trial isn't until next month; they weren't supposed to leave the Manor."

"The MLE got a tip that the Malfoys were hiding dark objects. Since they are still in Ministry custody, that is a violation of their house arrest, and a team of Aurors was sent out to investigate. We found a large number of magical objects in Draco Malfoy's possession that he isn't allowed to have, including one very dark object. The Malfoys' house arrest has been revoked and they've been remanded to the holding cells."

I wanted to strangle Ferrell upon hearing this news. This had to be a setup, because it was too much of a coincidence that Ron and I were sent away on such a far-flung mission on the same day the MLE gets a tip and raids Malfoy Manor.

"And what of my egg?" I asked when I finally managed to control my rage enough to get another question out.

"In the Ministry holding cells with the Malfoys."

"You arrested my unhatched egg?" I wished then for claws to slash through Ferrell's throat with.

"No, but you weren't there, so we relocated the egg along with the other parent," Ferrell answered.

"Who's in charge of this mission?"

"I am."

"On whose authority?"

"Robards and Temby."

Temby was the prosecutor who had tried Lucius Malfoy and he was also set to try Narcissa and Draco next month. He looked incompetent in the papers after Lucius got off with only five years in Azkaban and house arrest thereafter. I was set on getting both Draco and Narcissa off completely, which wouldn't look good on Temby's record either. Obviously Temby wasn't going to have it and was stirring up trouble for the Malfoys. And everyone knows that I'm on the Malfoy's side, which was why Robards had to send Ron and me away.

I had all I needed from Ferrell, so I walked out the door, with Ron yelling at me to wait up, and apparated to the Ministry. I went to Robards first, barging into his office. He was in the middle of a meeting with Temby.

"I demand that Draco Malfoy and our egg be released at once. You had no reason to barge into their home today and take them. I've been there every day for months and I know for a fact that there are no dark objects hidden in that house," I said forcefully.

"Harry, calm down and have a seat. We will discuss this rationally," Robards said.

I took a seat and glared daggers at Temby, who raised an eyebrow at me and picked up the twig of willow from Robards' desk. "If they were harboring no dark objects, then how to you explain this Horcrux I found hidden in Malfoy's nest?" Temby asked.

It was the twig from Grandfather Willow; Abraxas Malfoy's tree. I spluttered indignantly as I contemplated that they had desecrated my nest to get a stick given to Draco by his grandfather and were now calling it a Horcrux.

"It's not a Horcrux," I said when I finally found the words. "And I expect that twig and the rest of our nest to be returned in the original condition immediately! How do you expect us to care for an egg without our nest? Draco put a lot of work into that nest."

"Draco put the work into it, alright. He hid this Horcrux in the one place he knew you wouldn't look," Temby replied.

"That is _not_ a Horcrux! Abraxas Malfoy did not split his soul," I insisted.

"Harry, you seem to be aware of the situation. Just what exactly did the late Abraxas Malfoy _do_ to this stick?" Robards' tone sounded reasonable enough that I thought I might be able to persuade him to take my side.

"It's not just the stick; there's an entire tree out in the woods surrounding Malfoy Manor. My men just informed me that they found it right before I came to meet with you," Temby said.

So they had found Grandfather Willow's tree. It was unfortunate, because I didn't know what they would do with it. I worried that they might cut it down in their idiocy, but at least I wouldn't have to lie about its existence.

"Abraxas Malfoy got up out of his death bed and his dying act was to fuse his being with that tree. He didn't murder anyone to do it. He didn't split his soul. His essence left his body lying there dead on the ground and joined with that of the tree. He is more like a ghost than a Horcrux, with the exception that he is still alive and can be killed," I explained, looking to Robards pleadingly; I needed him to take my side.

"What documentation do you have of this? If we can repeat it and show that this is fundamentally different from a Horcrux, then we can call the whole thing off as a simple misunderstanding," Robards replied, looking at me expectantly.

"No, they can't repeat it yet. He's forgotten what he did exactly. Being a tree has addled his memory, but I can assure you that he is fundamentally different from a Horcrux. I have more experience with Horcruxes than anyone. I would know if he was one and he's not," I insisted.

"Potter's lying to protect his boyfriend and has undoubtedly been lied to himself. Veela have been known to dupe their suitors into believing outrageous lies," Temby said.

"That's not true! I haven't been duped into anything! Draco doesn't even have an ounce of allure; Not. A. drop," I said, emphasizing the last three words as if they were each their own sentence.

"Temby, what evidence do you have that this tree is a Horcrux exactly? Using a living thing as a Horcrux is most uncommon," Robards said.

"Voldemort only used Nagini as a Horcrux because he already had so many others," I added.

"The fact that an allegedly deceased Malfoy's soul is merged with a tree is enough proof in my book. It was a spell to detect Dark Magic that detected the twig within the nest, although I must say it was ingenious to hide a twig among branches-" I interrupted Temby there.

"He didn't hide the twig among the branches! There was no reason to keep a piece of his grandfather's tree around the house. Draco's grandfather gave him this twig to show his support for Draco and our egg, nothing more."

"Regardless, the evidence remains that a piece of soul is merged with that tree and the only known way to do it, is to create a Horcrux," Temby replied.

"That is because Abraxas Malfoy was the first one to do it. But the facts remain that he didn't split his soul, he didn't murder, and he doesn't have a body out there walking around or even a spectral form, like Voldemort did," I said. "His entire being left his body and fused with the tree.

"That is just what Draco Malfoy told you. Of course he would lie to you about it; you're an Auror. But you have no way of knowing those facts, because you weren't there at the time, were you? The man died while you were a fifth year at Hogwarts and not even Draco Malfoy was there to see what really happened," Temby said.

"Cissy then. Narcissa Malfoy would've been there; what did she say about it?" I asked.

"She wouldn't tell us the truth about something like this; she's as guilty as the rest of them," Temby replied.

"All the same, we will have to question her," Robards piped in.

"Fine," Temby agreed, "but I want to be there. I know that they've hidden the body of Abraxas Malfoy's last victim just as they've hidden the fact that he made a Horcrux."

"They haven't hidden anything, because he did no such thing," I protested.

"They hid the tree," Temby retorted.

"Gentlemen, we are getting nowhere. This situation must be investigated properly so that we can get to the heart of the matter. Temby, you better make sure Ferrel does everything by the book when it comes to this accusation against Potter's family. Potter, Draco and Narcissa Malfoy have asked for you; I suggest you pay them a visit and ensure that they are being treated properly," Robards said, effectively ending the meeting.

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Author's note: And so the plot thickens. Please review!


	11. Chapter 11

Author's note: I meant to get this posted yesterday, but I've been super busy with work.

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I made the trip over to the Ministry Holding Facility and asked to see Draco and Narcissa. I was escorted to an empty interrogation room where I waited. Cissy arrived first, escorted by a female guard. Her ankles were cuffed to each other and to the cuffs on her wrists, so that she couldn't escape.

"Oh thank Salazar Harry! They came and took us from our home. They took the egg from the incubator and confiscated the nest! They won't even let me see him!" Cissy exclaimed. Who she hadn't been allowed see was obviously Draco.

"I'm going to make this right; they aren't going to get away with this," I proclaimed.

I spent the next ten minutes comforting Narcissa and trying to get her to tell me everything she knew. Then the door was opened by a male guard, who looked back into the hallway at someone I couldn't see from this angle and barked, "Hurry up," in a gruff unfriendly voice.

And then Draco appeared, shuffling forward slowly with his ankles chained together and his arms filled with our egg; at least they hadn't cuffed his wrists. He awkwardly sat down on a chair with the egg on his lap.

"Oh Draco!" Cissy cried, flinging herself at her son and somehow getting her hands on his shoulders in an attempt at motherly contact. It looked like she wanted to hug him, but the chains prevented it.

"I'm alright, Mother," Draco said, without looking up. She nodded and went to stand behind his chair to face me, her hands planted comfortingly on his shoulders.

Initially Draco's eyes were downcast, staring at the egg, and refusing to make eye contact with me. But then I moved over to him, bending at the knees to be closer to his level, and pulled his chin up to look at me. His eyes looked dead and hollow, almost in shock even.

"Draco," I whispered and placed my hands on top of his, on our egg. "I'm going to fix this. I'm going to make everything alright again."

Draco nodded and from there the questioning began. I needed information and with my Auror training, I knew how to get it. I needed to know who had done what and what the Aurors were thinking. The Malfoys didn't have all of the answers for me, but they had enough of them to start my investigation. Their story corroborated a lot of what I'd already been told by Temby and Ferrel, but added the feeling and emotion to the story. Also, it wasn't whitewashed to make the Aurors look good, instead painting the Aurors in a crazed demonic light that was probably half truth and half exaggeration.

I stayed with them as long as I was allowed, but after two hours, visiting time was up. I hugged Draco, told him I loved him, and that everything would be alright. I promised Cissy that I would take care of this. And then I was ejected back out into the Auror department headquarters and faced with the daunting task of rescuing the Malfoys from unfair persecution and prosecution. I thought vaguely about finding a good lawyer to help me, knowing I'd need one, but ultimately help found me first, in the form of Ron.

Ron took me home to the Burrow, where more than half the Weasley family was waiting to help me. Molly and Arthur were there of course, along with Hermione, George, Bill, Fleur, Dromeda, Teddy, Ginny, and Lee Jordan. I told them what I knew and what needed to be done and Hermione took charge, handing out assignments.

Bill and Fleur were sent out to contact the Malfoy family attorney, Mr. Tordoff, fill the man in if necessary, and get him working on the case. Molly and Arthur would find a new lawyer to hire, because there was too much to expect Mr. Tordoff to be able to handle it all. George and Lee would contact the Department of Mysteries and get them involved; it was their job to find an expert willing to study the tree to determine that it is not a Horcrux. Ron and Ginny would go to Malfoy Manor to check on the well-being of the tree and insist that the tree be protected until the end of the case, as opposed to cut down in fear. Hermione and I had the hardest task of all: to contact the press and share my story.

I hated reporters. I hated the Daily Prophet and I _especially_ hated Rita Skeeter. Normally I would choose to go to Luna and her father's crazy magazine long before even thinking about taking a story to the Prophet. Unfortunately, the Quibbler just didn't have the coverage needed to alert the masses. Hermione insisted it had to be the Prophet, but at least it wasn't Skeeter.

I ended up giving my interview to a middle aged, balding dark skinned wizard named Earl Zabini. Out of all of the reporters who came clambering when Hermione and I showed up on the news floor, he seemed the most trustworthy. A reporter couldn't be trusted with something this important, even this one, so Hermione arranged for us to sign a contract stating that I had to review and approve the article before it was printed. They wanted it for the morning paper, so I was stuck there all afternoon and evening.

In the interview, I told Earl all about what Temby and Ferrel were up to and how this whole thing was a setup, designed to get the Malfoy family back for Lucius' lite sentence. It was a witch hunt designed to dig up dirt on Draco and Narcissa, in order to punish them for the crimes Lucius was getting away with. That wasn't right or fair and I told him so.

I also for the first time, revealed my relationship with Draco to the public, including our egg. Draco would hate it, but the world had to know he was a veela in order to fully understand the story. The fact that I, the Savior of the Wizarding World with impeccable moral fiber, was in a permanent relationship with Draco and was having a child with him attested to his character and his innocence. It would also, according to Earl, draw attention to this story, beyond the mere addition of my name. And most importantly, I talked about Grandfather Abraxas' tree and how it differed from a Horcrux. I reminded the readers that I was the authority on Horcruxes, so I would know.

Earl seemed to report things accurately, not embellishing or adding untruths the way Skeeter was famous for. There were only a few small discrepancies, which I had corrected, before I approved the final version. There was also the matter of the title, which I wanted to be something along the lines of, "Innocent Malfoy Tree Persecuted and Malfoy Family Wrongly Imprisoned!" focusing on the heart of the matter. Earl preferred something along the lines of, "Harry Potter Engaged to Wrongfully Accused Draco Malfoy with a Child on the Way!"

We ultimately compromised, by agreeing to publish two front page articles side by side, one with each headline. The original article would go under my title. A few paragraphs would be removed to serve as the meat of the other article, with a large amount of the typical Harry Potter gossip added to beef it up. I even provided a picture of me and Draco for them and they acquired one of Draco and Narcissa's arrests, Draco holding our egg in his mugshot, from the Auror Department.

The changes ended up taking most of the night, making me exhausted when I went home and crashed. However, it all proved to be worth it the next morning when I was awoken by the delivery owl dropping the paper on my head. In a matter of hours, everyone in the Wizarding World knew what was going on.

I was planning on taking the day off to spend reconnecting with the Weasleys to determine the status of their various missions, but that plan was pushed to the side first thing that morning. Mrs. Weasley had informed me of the success of her and Mr. Weasley's mission with the attorney the moment I was out of bed, even before she started breakfast. I thanked her and joined Ron in making the toast and tea, while Mrs. Weasley broke out the frying pan; Mr. Weasley was still in bed, owing to the fact that he'd been called into work last night. Ron was giving me the rundown of his experiences yesterday playing the role of tree hugger.

"So I says to Putnam-" Putnam was a mid-ranking Auror, above me and Ron in the ranks, but not by much, "-that we were there to guard the tree like a bunch of wackos from Greenpeace and that bloody _tree_! Do you know what he said?" Ron asked as the Ministry owl flew in the window and landed on my shoulder, its sharp talons ripping through my shirt.

Knowing Grandfather Willow, it was probably some snide comment about the Weasleys being blood traitors, but I didn't get to find out exactly what. The owl was from Robards, ordering me into Headquarters immediately. Apparently he wanted to talk about the case. When the boss owls, we Aurors come running. I promised Ron I'd hear his story later, he promised back that he'd let the family know that I'd been called away by Robards, and then I was off.

Robards sat me down in front of his desk and spelled his door closed, before verifying that the silencing charm was still functioning, keeping this meeting private.

Then Robards turned to me and said, "I've called a press conference for noon today. After your article in this morning's paper, you've forced my hand and left me no other choice. Temby and Ferrel will have to give statements and I expect them to have their preliminary paperwork filled out and complete by today. Tomorrow, a full scale investigation of wrongdoing on the part of Temby will begin. He will be temporally taken off of the case, pending the results. If your accusations are proven true, he will be permanently replaced."

"Good. I hope he is; Draco and Narcissa won't get a fair trial as long as he's in charge," I said.

"I hope you are wrong, but I fear you're right. Either way, you're involved in this investigation and I require you to be there at the press conference and to give an official statement. You have the rest of the morning to work on it," Robards said, dismissing me from his office.

I went to my desk and got started. An official statement was different from an interview, in that I was not allowed to relay hearsay. It was a simple recitation of the facts as I experienced them, starting with Ron and me being sent across the continent to get us away during the raid and ending with what I found at the Manor and the state of Draco and Cissy in Ministry custody upon my return. I wasn't allowed to build a case for impeaching Temby from office and was limited to retelling the words Temby and Ferrel had said to me. I was, as an Auror, however, allowed to include a recommendation at the end to the effect that Temby's conduct was to be looked into.

I was in the middle of frantic report writing when Ron popped his head in and said, "I'm off to Horsford Woods. I've been reassigned."

"What? I thought our case was in Kyrgyzstan," I protested. I'd been counting on having Ron by my side, like he always was. Even when I didn't need him, I felt better knowing he was there, watching my back. And with Draco in jail, there was no telling what I might need Ron for today.

"Our case was in Kyrgyzstan, until you went all emotional and bailed. Robards said that since I style myself one of those new-aged eco-friendly bullshiters, I can spend the day tracking down whoever has been vandalizing trees in the Horsford Woods. It's probably just some guys our age having a laugh, so no partner required," Ron replied.

We Aurors lived and breathed the sacred code of the partner, so solo assignments were only ever employed with cases ruled to be of virtually zero danger. Wizards who liked to magically carve their names into trees weren't considered much of a danger risk. In fact, those types of cases were so low priority in these post-war times that the reports normally were just filed away without being assigned to anyone. "Bullshite case meant to keep you busy; tough luck mate," I concluded.

"Bloody thanks I get for saving that racist tree; they want me out of the way, so you don't have a chance to go all Mad-Eye on the Ministry and demand your Malfoys back," Ron said. This was assuming that I couldn't act without my partner, which was basically true. "But don't worry, we Weasleys take care of our own. We handled everything yesterday, just like we said we would."

"Alright, thanks Ron. I mean it; you're the best mate a bloke could ask for. Now go off and hug a few more tress, because I have an official statement to write."

Ron nodded and saluted me on the way out. I went back to writing.

Later, at the press conference I was allowed to read my statement to the gathered crowd, but was not allowed to answer questions regarding my personal life. It was irritating, but I was familiar with the process and understood it. A press conference was a place for disclosing facts to the public, not for trying a case in the court of public opinion. Interpretation was to be left to the media until a later date when the department head had formulated the department's stance on the matter.

Afterwards, I finally had time to visit with Draco and Cissy for the day. Even though they were being kept in the same holding facility, they were not allowed to see each other outside of my visits, because they were of differing genders. My visits provided them with a chance to see each other, as well as me. I informed them of what was going on in the outside world and reassured them that I was taking care of things.

I also had some time with Draco and our egg, without Cissy, for a more intimate conversation. He told me then how upset he was with having to stay in there with our baby and that he wanted me to take the egg. I, however, was too busy running back and forth handling things to take care of the egg. I explained that to him and how much I loved both of them. And he agreed to keep our egg with him and take care of it.

After visiting time ended, I returned to the Weasleys for an update. Hermione and I had obviously succeeded in getting my interview onto the front page, but I didn't know how the other missions turned out until then, although I was fairly certain that Ron hadn't strangled the tree or I would've heard about it. Bill and Fleur were successful in contacting Mr. Tordoff, the Malfoy family attorney, who was now working on the case. Molly and Arthur had hired a new lawyer, Mr. Rook, who was now in contact with Mr. Tordoff and focusing on the tree side of things. George and Lee already had an Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries examining the tree. And lastly, Ron and Ginny had verified the well-being of the tree and gotten Robards to order a guard for the tree, threatening to file murder accusations if the tree was cut down. Ginny had also spat on the tree, for calling her a blood traitor, and told him to shove off when he complained about Aurors trampling his saplings.

All of the key angles had been covered and everything was looking up. But just when I thought we were in for clear skies ahead, the story of the crystal broke. The next morning's cover of the Prophet was destined to be the polar opposite of the pro-Malfoy cover of today. The crystal was to be a shit-storm that hit out of the blue at the worst possible time.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry about the cliff-hanger, but there it is. Any ideas what the secret of the Malfoy Crystal is? Also, there are only 2 more chapters left, so we have an egg to name. They don't know the sex, so I'm looking for gender neutral names. Also, I think it would be fun to give the baby a bird name. So far I've thought of Phoenix, Raven, and Griffin. Anyone have another idea? Or a preference? Or just an opinion of what sex each of those bird names fits better. I think I've heard of all three used for girls, but do they work for boys too?


	12. Chapter 12

On top of the charges of Grandfather Willow being a Horcrux, came the accusations surrounding the alleged, "Malfoy Crystal." Miles Daffin claimed in an interview with the Daily Prophet that it was a mysterious dark artifact. The interview was conducted from inside a cell in Azkaban, since Daffin was a small time offender that had gotten himself mixed up running small illegal errands for Voldemort. The Malfoy lawyer, Mr. Tordoff, went on record denying this claim and accused Daffin of making it up, in hopes of getting his sentence reduced.

Daffin's account was so mysteriously lacking in verifiable details that I had hoped that it really was made up and that it would go away quickly. Unfortunately for that idea, Bradley Upshaw jumped on the bandwagon, claiming the crystal to be the source of the Malfoy's untold riches. He was another two-bit criminal, this one awaiting his trial and out on bail, released on his own recognizance, due to the overcrowding in the Ministry's jails. Upshaw had taken advantage of Death Eater reign by sneaking into newly vandalized stores, absconding with as much merchandise as he could, and setting up his own shop to sell the stolen goods. There were even a few claims that he'd been part of the actual vandalisation, working with the Death Eaters. That would make him a Death Eater trying to turn on a known Death Eater, Lucius, for a reduced sentence.

Upshaw was able to give about as many verifiable facts as Daffin. The first rule of any Auror investigation, after the sacred code of the partner that was, was that all statements had to be checked for validity. The witness' story had to contain details that could be proven true. Sometimes this was as simple as whether October nineteenth was a Tuesday or not. If Upshaw said Lucius showed up at his shop with untold riches on Tuesday October nineteenth and the nineteenth happened to be a Sunday, which it was, the statement was false. This was especially true if there were Order of the Phoenix records staking the place out which ruled out the event happening any time in the month of October. If a bloke couldn't come up with a single true fact off of the top of his head, then there was no reason to believe the statement was true.

The discrepancy in the day of the week, the only independent fact Upshaw mentioned, threw serious doubt on his entire statement. If it had been just him and Daffin blowing hot air, the whole crystal nonsense would've blown over a lot sooner. But rumors breed like decaying dementors and criminals facing time in Azkaban spin tales as fast as they can. One day the Prophet reports that so and so said this bloke did such and such and the next day every wizard in Azkaban is claiming to have heard something about it.

In Lucius Malfoy's case, Elliott Avery, Fowler Trowbridge, and Gunther Meddock, all three young lower level Death Eaters, were willing to testify that they overhead Lucius Malfoy discussing the crystal with Gilbert Nott. The three claimed to be present at a certain house, scoping out the scene, prior to a known Death Eater attack, when they heard snippets of a discussion between Lucius and Gilbert regarding the crystal. They had no details on the actual nature of the crystal or any crimes committed with it, but the Death Eater attack panned out exactly and all three told the same story when separated. Three witnesses singing the same tune, however vague, automatically lends credibility to the statement. Add in an independent fourth witness and it becomes veritable fact.

Gilbert Nott was Theodor Nott Senior's little brother, which placed him rather high up on the Death Eater ladder and subject to life in Azkaban or even the kiss, depending on the exact nature of the evidence against him. Nott Senior was killed fighting during the war, making him the perfect scape goat for little brother Gil. Gil had previously claimed everything from his older brother made him join, to he was imperiused, and had attempted to name every name in the book. The trouble for Gil was that most of the names in his book were dead or already convicted, so it was no wonder he came up with evidence against Lucius. Gil had overheard Lucius and his brother discussing the sale of stolen gems. He admitted to having asked Lucius about it at the same time and place the three lesser Death Eaters had previously given.

If Gil Nott was the only one who claimed that his older brother and Lucius had discussed the crystal, his account could be discounted, given his reputation for saying anything that might save his skin. But the fact that three other Death Eaters, who had little connection to him, overheard this discussion, proved that a discussion had at least taken place. Whether the discussion included the mention of stolen gems or not was a fact only Gil was testifying to; without it, all we had was that a crystal was discussed. What kind of crystal and its relation to stolen gems was not overheard. At this point, it was still rather easy for the Malfoy Lawyer, Mr. Tordoff to deny all accusations of wrongdoing.

The next day brought Old Mr. Featherbottom's statement. Mr. Featherbottom proved to be the witness with the most information, although the credibility of said information was questionable at best. He insisted that the crystal was an instrument of burglary, enabling the family to steal precious jewels easily and that he'd personally fenced some of these jewels back in the day. One of the few things Prosecutor Temby could prove was that Featherbottom was a criminal and a known fencer of stolen jewelry. The rest of his statement produced no leads and no one was ever able to link a case of theft or lost jewels to the jewels given to Featherbottom by Lucius.

Of course that claim had more lowlifes popping up out of the woodwork. Lucius was well known to the jewel fencing crowd and welcome among the other jewel thieves, as attested by pretty much every wizard in Ministry custody for these crimes. But they were a shifty lot and their testimony was famous for being unable to hold the weight of the parchment it was written on. While there were plenty of accounts of Lucius being seen talking to or hanging out with them, there were no accounts of him participating in heists or ever linking himself to provable thefts. He never claimed to have jewels that were known to be hot, he never bragged about breaking into this place or that, and he never said who or where he had stolen from.

Temby insisted that the crystal existed, the Malfoy family still had it, and that Featherbottom's story was accurate, despite the fact that the ancient wizard had a reputation similar to that of Mundungus Fletcher. But Temby did not find it, nor prove that it was dark, or that it ever existed. There were only three suspicious facts that could be proven against Lucius. One, he had once had a conversation about a crystal with Gil Nott. Two, a large number of diamonds passed through his possession over the years. And three, when asked where he was getting them from, he liked to evade the question.

In the end the testimony of a dozen wizards was discounted as hearsay. Lucius' alleged crimes and the allegation of owning an instrument of thievery were ruled irrelevant in the cases against Draco, Narcissa, and Abraxas' tree and thrown out of court; a separate case would have to be brought solely against Lucius if Temby really wanted to press the matter. Then the prosecution's case was all down to whether or not Abraxas Malfoy's tree was a Horcrux.

The best defense was a good offense and that was where Mr. Rook came in. Rook was the defense attorney the Weasleys helped with hiring and he focused on using the media to convince the public that Temby was the leader of a baseless witch hunt that was wasting taxpayer money. Temby, livid over the leniency of Lucius' sentence and in a rage, went on several drunken rants in bars about how he was going to make the Malfoy family pay. All of Temby's witnesses were unreliable and some outright false. The few that could be proven, were incredibly vague with no actual proof of wrong-doing.

The beginning of the end for Temby came in the form of proof that he'd paid Featherbottom to testify, which was clearly against the law. To top it off, the whole thing was irrelevant to the case against Draco, Cissy, and Grandfather Willow. These were all exclusively allegations against Lucius, who had already been tried and convicted and had no charges pending. A week after the start of the investigation, the case was dropped. The headline the Prophet ran with was a direct quote from me: "Temby started a witch hunt; the Malfoys are innocent!" There was more than enough evidence for the article backing this claim up and plenty of witches and wizards willing to testify.

As for the Horcrux allegations, the unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries were instructed to study the possessed willow tree. Their preliminary tests on the tree did not show indications of being a Horcrux. There was a fundamental difference in magical signatures between the two types of objects. Although the tree did set off Dark Magic detectors, it wasn't evil in the sense that a Horcrux was, with a signature much closer to that of a ghost. And the spirit was whole, never fractured, without even the healed scar left behind from committing a murder. Abraxas Malfoy it seemed had never killed anyone. This was new magic and therefore difficult to define, but clearly it was different. The Horcrux charge too was false and the Malfoys consequently innocent.

Temby's removal from all cases related to the Malfoys was made permanent and further investigation of his misconduct was ongoing. Auror Ferrel was reassigned and reprimanded only for being overzealous with the investigation, since he was just doing his job. Draco's and Narcissa's house arrests were reinstated. The egg and the tree were released into my custody. But, the original accusations of Death Eater activity stood, pending the appointment of a new prosecutor willing to take the case.

Wizarding law worked slightly different from Muggle law. Where a Muggle prosecutor might be ordered by someone higher up to take a case to trial, the same was not true of wizarding prosecutors. Instead they could bid and jockey for a case, or hold out for an increased wage. If public opinion was such that no one would dare come forward and risk their reputation prosecuting someone wildly believed innocent, then the case could be dropped and the accused released free and clear.

A month later, when the original trial date was set and no prosecutor had come forward, due to the intense media pressure to let Harry Potter's family off, the Warlock in charge dropped both cases. Draco and Cissy were finally free and cleared of all charges.

The first thing they did with their freedom was to take me and the egg out to visit Grandfather Abraxas and tell him the good news. It was the tree's first time meeting his great grandegg. We were nervous at first about the creature inheritance being shoved into Abraxas' face, when before the racist was always able to pretend that his family was perfectly pure.

It turned out that there was nothing to fret about. After a round of joyous greetings and twiggy hugs, the tree simply reached a branch out to the egg, picked it up, and swayed it gently in the breeze, before returning it to the nest.

Once the greetings and hugs were out of the way, Abraxas first vented about all of the awful Aurors and Unspeakables who had passed through his clearing and trampled his saplings. "Those saplings were like children to me! They took my Lucius away and then they murdered my willow babies!"

"We will help you plant new seeds Father Willow," Cissy appeased.

After a few more explicatives aimed at the trampling Aurors, the tree was quiet, obviously thinking about this. When he looked back up, his countenance was totally changed. He requested in a graveled voice, "Now tell me what has happened to the Malfoy Crystal."

"Safe and sound Grandfather, right where Father left it before the war," Draco answered and Cissy hummed her agreement.

"Draco? You mean Temby's accusations of a dark crystal were true?" I asked.

"No Harry, the Malfoy Crystal isn't dark and it isn't an instrument of burglary," Draco replied.

"Burglary! Is that what they were saying? That's preposterous," the tree said.

"Harry, my husband did not wish others to know the source of the gems, so he lied and said they were stolen. The Malfoy Crystal was never an instrument of thievery, but of creation," Cissy explained.

"Yes, Grandfather, why don't you tell Harry the story of the crystal?" Draco asked.

The tree objected, because that knowledge was reserved for members of the Malfoy family and I had yet to officially marry in. After a bit of talk, an exception was made for me, since I had saved the family from Azkaban and was a member by blood, through our egg.

"The Malfoy Crystal was created by the noted alchemist Hades Lucian Malfoy hundreds of years ago," Abraxas began. "It is composed of diamond crystal, but it is more than just a large flawless gem. It possesses strong magics that are capable of transforming charcoal along its edges into diamond. Under natural conditions, the crystal structure of carbon that compose diamond is formed only after years of intense pressure from being trapped under the bowels of the Earth. But the magic of the Malfoy Crystal catalyzes this transformation under atmospheric conditions and requires only months. Once a year the growing edges of the crystal can be chipped back, the fragments sold to support the family, and the original crystal set to grow again, but never do the chips contain enough magic to catalyze the reaction anew."  
"Wow," I replied.

"And that is how the Malfoy family has amassed such an enormous amount of wealth over the years with little work," Narcissa added with a smirk.

"There is some work to it. The charcoal has to be pure or the diamond will not be pure. And the chips do not harvest themselves, my dear," the willow tree replied.

"We haven't harvested since a few months before the end of the war. Father was always very insistent that we had to use the utmost precaution in protecting its existence and whereabouts, so we never harvest unless we are absolutely certain no one is following us," Draco added.

"Then it is time to harvest again my dear grandson. Do you think you will be able to do so on your own for the first time?" Abraxas asked.

"I don't know. I don't want to risk it," Draco replied.

"It's better to wait for your father. We won't need the money while he is away," Cissy said.

"I agree." There was a pause and then Grandfather Willow announced, "I sense a disturbance in the trees. I think someone is coming."

No one was doing anything illegal or had anything to hide, but after their ordeal with the Ministry, the family was understandably nervous. Draco grabbed up our egg, backing up again his grandfather's trunk for protection. Cissy and I stood in front of them, wands drawn and ready for a fight. We would protect Draco and the egg at all cost.

As it turns out, we didn't have to. A pale slender old woman emerged gracefully from the trees into the clearing. She had brown eyes and white hair, devoid of all coloring. Her features were regal, pointy, and bore a striking resemblance to those of Draco and Lucius. She wore a set of baroque traveling robes trimmed in antic lace and a large hat. And she was old; there was not a single bit of her that wasn't covered in wrinkles, with the heaviest concentration of winkles around her mouth and the crow's feet surrounding her eyes.

"Darwina!" Grandfather Willow exclaimed. "You came back!"

A branch lowered and twisted around the old witch, presumably Abraxas' wife Darwina, in a hug. Cissy lowered her wand and Draco shifted into a less defensive position.

"My dear Abraxas! I am so glad you are unharmed. Why, when I heard what they were considering doing to you…I was beside myself. I am ever so grateful that you survived. As soon as I heard that all charges were dropped and it was safe to return, I came immediately," Darwina said, holding onto the branch as if it were her late husband's hand.

The tree hummed in appreciation and let Darwina go. She then hugged Cissy and Draco, greeting them warmly. Watching her was like looking at an older female version of Lucius, but with a completely different personality. She was stern and proper, but warm and loving in a way Lucius would never be able to pull off.

"Mother, this young man here is Draco's suitor, Harry Potter. Harry, this is my mother-in-law, Darwina Malfoy," Cissy said.

"Thank you for rescuing my family Auror Potter. I have heard good things about you," Darwina said, offering me a hand to shake.

I took Darwina's hand and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you madam."

"It's Dowager or My Lady, not madam. One mustn't forget that I was once the lady of Malfoy Manor." Darwina said it with such pretentiousness that I could finally see how it was possible for someone like Lucius to have been born to this woman.

"Yes Mother, and we are so grateful that you have returned to us alive and well," Cissy said, interceding on my behalf.

"The mountains of Romania are not too terrible. One can find life's comforts in those ancient castles if one looks hard enough. Now, let me see this grandegg of mine. I had a veela third cousin, once removed, back in the day who laid an egg. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," Darwina said.

Draco came forward with his egg. Darwina hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. Then she took the egg from him and gushed with admiration, saying that it was even more beautiful than her distant relative's egg had been.

There was a bit more catching up out there in the forest, but soon Draco, Cissy, and I left Darwina and Abraxas to reconnect in private. We went back into the house, Draco placing our egg back into the incubator, safe and sound.

Cissy went about ordering house elves to prepare for Darwina's return, which included making the old woman's favorites for supper and preparing her bedroom. Apparently Darwina was staying. One of the conveniences of having the charges dropped was that all limitations for both her and her son were dropped. They were free to perform magic, order house elves around, associate with whoever they wanted, and even leave their house.

* * *

Draco and I were busy putting our lives back together for a time. But after a few weeks, we finally had an afternoon to ourselves, with Narcissa and Darwina volunteering to watch our egg. Draco suggested a trip into the Malfoy Catacombs where the crystal was hidden, just so that I could see. The site was in the middle of a forest and heavily warded. There was a five mile walk into the tunnels of Earth, before we finally reached the chamber where the magical diamond catalyst was stored. The chamber was filled entirely with charcoal, to maximize the efficiency of the catalysis, but he knew the proper decanting spells.

And then Draco held in his hands a diamond the size of a quaffle. It was the largest, most perfectly clear diamond I had ever seen in my life. It shown brilliantly in the light of my wand, casting refractions of light onto the bare Earth walls of the antechamber.

"One day, it will belong to our child," Draco said and I murmured my assent. "I think I want this."

"What?" I asked.

"You and me. I wasn't sure…for a long time I didn't think I could want you, because you know, you're Harry Potter."

"And you're a pureblood and your father hates me."

"Partly. Mostly because you were a giant arse to me in school."

"Me?" I asked and he nodded. I couldn't believe what he was saying, so I repeated myself, my incredulity evident in my voice. "Me?" Again he nodded. "Wait, _I_ was the arse?"

"Yes, you were," he confirmed.

"How was _I_ the arse? _You_ were the one who stomped on my nose!"

"After you were spying on me!"

"Spying on you doesn't justify stomping on my face."

"Oh yes it does."

"Alright fine, let's strike that incident from the record. What about all of those times you insulted me and my friends? You were always starting fights in the corridors, especially before Snape walked in, so I got in trouble and you didn't."

"That was your fault too."

"How was that my fault?"

"You refused my hand on the train before first year. You refused to be my friend. I _had_ to insult you, just to get your attention."

"That's what it was all about? You wanted my attention?" I asked, realization dawning on me.

He nodded, biting his lip as he took the diamond back from me. "And now I have it. I never would have believed it, but you have come into my life and put my family back together again. Not only have you solved our legal problems, but you saved my grandfather and created an environment safe enough for my grandmother to come home. Soon I will have an heir and it won't be long before my father returns home. Thank you for that." As he spoke, he properly tucked the diamond back into its chamber of charcoal. Then he dusted his hands off to rid them of the residual charcoal.

"Well you have it now." As I spoke, I leaned in until our lips were touching. He leaned into the kiss and then we were snogging passionately in the dark, the only light coming from the tip of my wand.

When we broke apart, each panting for breath, I reached into my robes pocket and grasped the small square box that contained a much smaller diamond. I'd acquired it the week before and wasn't intending to use it just yet, but for some reason I'd felt the need to keep it on me at all times. I guess subconsciously I knew that the perfect moment might come at anytime and I wanted to be prepared. Since I'd made sure to buy from a source who Lucius had sold to, I knew it was a Malfoy diamond; Darwina and Cissy had both confirmed that it was the real thing, before I'd paid.

I opened the box, drawing in Draco's attention, and looked him in his wide grey eyes. "I was going to wait to ask you after an elaborate dinner made by your elves with flowers and everything," I said and dropped to my knees, holding out the box. The platinum band with the single princess cut diamond gleamed in the wandlight coming from the floor of the cave, my wand having fallen in the heat of our passionate snog. "I love everything about you, Draco Malfoy. You are gorgeous, smart, and absolutely wonderful. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, holding out his left hand for me.

I slipped the ring onto his finger, before standing up and engulfing him in my arms. He clung to me as if he never wanted to let me go. After the ordeal we'd been through to earn his freedom, I never wanted to let him go ever again either. I was going to make him mine and keep him forever.

* * *

Author's Note: There you have it. Only one more chapter left now.

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	13. Chapter 13

The wedding occurred the following year, the date chosen by Cissy. She cut down Draco's protests about waiting by insisting that pureblood custom dictated that the marriage occur _before_ the birth of the first child, an event that was approaching rapidly for us. She made her son heel in a way I was incapable of.

It was the magical wedding of the century and everyone who was anyone was there. Everything about the wedding was Cissy's doing, including the hordes of guests she invited. She was like a force to be reckoned with, with an army of wedding-crazed women behind her. That army was composed of Darwina Malfoy, Druella Black, Dromeda Tonks, and Molly Weasley. The five women seemed to bond over the wedding plans, which led to Dromeda reconnecting with her long estranged mother and Mrs. Weasley being invited to snooty pureblood tea-dates.

I was happy for Dromeda and Mrs. Weasley, despite my misgivings about the scale of the wedding. Personally, I didn't want to think about all of the work that went into it, all those people who were there, or how much money was wasted on the thing, ever again. For me it was about me and Draco and our blossoming love. And it was about tying the knot before our child's birth, so that we could be a proper family.

Our egg hatched a mere week after the wedding in our honeymoon suite, since we took it with us to the Caribbean. We had been skinny dipping in the warm azure water when we were alerted to the presence of the first crack by a monitoring spell and an elf, having used double precaution before leaving it in the incubator. We summoned our bathrobes and apparated back.

The top of the thick shell was sliced off by Draco's wand. That was standard veela birthing procedure, due to the risk of the child dying from exhaustion; a baby bird was evolved to handle cutting its way free, but baby veela evolved with magical assistance. Our son was wet, covered in a thin film, pink, and attached to the membranes bordering the shell by an umbilical cord.

Draco cut the cord close to the stomach, leaving only a short stub. Only then did he pull the scrawny infant into his arms and begin to peel the film away from the face. The limbs were long and skinny and locked tightly into the fetal position. The baby was about the length of a six month old, but much thinner. I picked bits of film from the back of his head, which I soon noticed was not as bald as it initially appeared. Very fine clear hairs stuck to the film and my pulling on them caused the child to cry.

"Leave it; we'll wash it," Draco said, bouncing the baby instinctively. "Shush, it's okay Griffin. Father won't let Papa mess with your hair again."

Griffin was what we agreed to name our first born. We didn't know beforehand if we were having a boy, a girl, or a veela, and it was a unisex name. Plus it paid homage to Draco's veela ancestry and sounded cool in front of Willow Potter Malfoy. Willow and Potter were both the middle names and Malfoy the last name; Draco had agreed that we would reverse the order of our last names for the next child. Willow was chosen for the tree his grandfather had merged with.

With Draco's calming murmurs, our first born quieted down, but the soft whimpers never completely ceased. "Open one of the jars of food. I bet he's hungry after being trapped in that egg all of that time," Draco said, motioning with his sharp chin towards the birthing bag we'd brought with us.

"_He_," I asked, catching onto the masculine pronoun and glancing down to Griffin's crotch. There was nothing to see, because Draco's arm was in the way.

"Yes, he. It's a human boy," Draco confirmed. "A hungry human boy; now fetch the food already. Griffin, I swear, sometimes your Papa moves like a snail when off of a broom." The last bit was said to our son, despite clearly being directed at me.

"Right." I dug in the bag and found several jars of mashed vegetables. "Yes, er, this one looks good." Choosing the squash, I grabbed the jar and one of the baby spoons, bringing the items over to Draco. I opened the jar, put a little of the orange mush on the spoon, and brought it to Griffin's whimpering lips. "Open up Griffin. Papa has something _nummy_ for you," I said gently, using Teddy's baby-talk word for food.

It was sort of like feeding Teddy back when he was only three months old and eating mashed foods for the first time. Griffin didn't seem to know what to do at first, but I continued pressing the spoon in and then pulled it out along the ridge of his upper gum, causing the food to fall off of the spoon. My son had two little baby teeth, but they were both on the bottom. He snapped his jaw closed and almost caught me with those razor sharp teeth, but he didn't catch much of the squash, most of that was pushed back out of his mouth.

I caught the orange colored mush dribbling down Griffin's face with the spoon, just as he opened his eyes for the first time, revealing a pair of eyes so pale grey they looked translucent. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me, still covered in the slime of birth and ensconced securely in Draco's arms. Together Draco and I fed him the entire jar, which seemed to do the trick, because he ceased whimpering.

After the feeding, Griffin was even messier, covered in both the remains of his birth and the squash. We bathed him next, taking care to remove all of the film from his entire body. His short thin hair we wash three times, until Draco was satisfied that we had gotten it all out, but were careful not to touch the belly button, where the stump of the umbilical cord remained. Then we dried him and dressed him in only a nappy and a soft and fluffy blanket.

"I'm glad he's a human male and not a veela male," Draco said, handing the clean baby to me for the first time. I nodded, even though I would've loved the child either way. Having a baby of either veela sex would result in the annoyance of not knowing which of the two veela sexes the child was. Then there was the potential problem of the human secondary sex not being in alignment with the veela primary sex, as in Draco's case. Plus there were the psychological issues of being different that Draco had had to face. I would rather my child not have to deal with any of that.

When Griffin's hair was finally clean and dry, it proved to be Draco's shade of pale blond. Even the baby's skin was the same pale shade as Draco's. He had Draco's coloration exactly, but none of Draco's facial features. The shape of the face, the brow, the nose, the chin, the jaw, the cheeks, the lips, and even the shape of the eye were all from my side. The shape of the eyes and lips were my mum's and the rest were my dad's. He was the perfect combination of Draco and me and I knew instantly that I would love him unconditionally forever. He was my son. One look at the adoration plastered on Draco's face and I knew he felt the same way.

"I would love him either way," I said, cradling the newborn who was much longer and skinnier than I was used to. "But I would prefer if he had more meat on his bones. I think we need to fatten him up."

"Yes, all hatchlings need to be fattened up in the beginning," Draco agreed, circling a tiny wrist with his thumb and forefinger. "But other than that, I think he's perfect."

"Absolutely perfect," I confirmed, pressing my nose to Griffin's pale head and breathing in the scent of freshly cleaned baby. There is nothing more wonderful than having your own child warm in your arms for the first time.

* * *

As for Grandfather Willow, the sight of the Malfoy Crystal for the first time since his joining with a tree jogged his memory. There was a reason beyond mere wealth that the magical diamond was important to him.

"My fierce Dragon, would you please bring the Crystal here, so that I may gaze upon it again now that it is safe?" Abraxas requested one day, his branches reaching out to catch an unusually thin pale blond toddler from tripping on his roots.

Griffin loved to be taken outside to the little clearing in the forest. He let out a happy squeal, babbled, "Tee, ee," wiggled free of the grasping branches, and continued on his way. Ee could mean a great number of things, including excitement, but Tee was his name for Grandfather Willow.

Griffin was just seven months old, but he'd been walking since four months. We didn't think he would, since he was a late crawler, but he was barely crawling before he was running. He looked like a stick figure running around on his bowed legs. We'd fattened him up as best we could, encouraging him to eat constantly and it had partially worked, but he was just growing in height so quickly. I blamed Draco for the height, since Merlin knew I'd always been on the short side; it was the Malfoy genes that made such tall babies.

Grandfather Willow's request seemed reasonable and benign, if a bit odd, so the next time we took Griffin out to the clearing, Draco brought the giant diamond with him. All it took was one look and the old wizard inside the tree remembered. The key to the fusion process was a small diamond that he had had in his wedding ring, grown from the Malfoy Crystal. Malfoy Diamonds were especially pure and absolutely perfect in structure down to the molecular level, which enabled them to do what a regular impure stone could not: hold the living essence of a human while the body died.

Abraxas Malfoy's dying act was to extract the diamond from his wedding ring and lodge it with a spell deep into the meat of the tree. Then he transferred his spirit into the stone and watched as his body succumbed to the dragon pox. He was not dead, but nor did he live. His essence was intact in one piece, compressed into the rigid lattice of the crystalized carbon.

Once the process was known, it was patented. Abraxas Malfoy's achievement was shared with the world, although the source of the super pure diamonds was never revealed; the patent stated only that super pure diamonds were needed for the process, not how to make or acquire such a gem. With the announcement came vindication for Abraxas and the Malfoy family in general as the entire wizarding world came to accept the process as harmless, since no one was hurt and it could be performed only at the moment of death. And those facing death finally had an alternative to being stuck on this planet forever that would allow them to stick around for just a few decades longer.

The ultimate proof that fusing oneself with a tree was not a dark process came in the centuries to follow. Future dark wizards tried to use Malfoy Diamonds to preserve their beings at the moment of their would-be deaths. Then they attempted the same dark ritual that restored Voldemort to his body, which resulted invariably in death. It was not possible for a person to return to a body from a diamond. Any attempt to do so killed the person just as surely as chopping down Abraxas' tree would kill him.

* * *

Epilogue:

We were happy after that with the perfect little family. The only thing we wanted was one more child; well I wouldn't have minded more than one, but Draco thought two were plenty. Three years later we decided it was time and conceived a second egg.

The specialist knew when the egg was delivered that something was wrong. "Zis egg iz too small," Madame Thibeaux said. After the fact Draco had reluctantly admitted that the healer wasn't that bad and agreed to have her back for our second child.

It was a beautiful silver egg decorated in intricate patterns that looked floral. It was close in size to the egg Griffin had come out of and much larger than the egg that had been a dud, but it was just a bit too small.

"What does that mean? Is it dead?" I asked frantically. I could tell Draco was worried too, but he was so exhausted from the labor that he looked like he was going to pass out any minute now.

"Wait a moment and let me see," she replied with her wand out. She performed a number of diagnostic spells on the egg before reaching a conclusion. "Eet iz alive. Eet would be perfect, eef eet were full size. Eet iz an inch too short and several inches too zin. Eef zis babee goes full term, eet will be small. I zink eet more likely zat we will 'ave to deliver ze babee early. Eet needs to 'ave monitoring spells on eet at all times. We need to know eef and when eet goes into distress so zat eet can be delivered early."

"Do it," Draco requested of the healer groggily.

Half an hour later, there was a complex net of diagnostic charms engulfing our egg in the nest. Draco and I soon learned to conjure the net without help, since it needed to be redone every day. We recorded the diagnostics ourselves, marking them down in a log book four times a day. Madame Thibeaux stopped by once a week to read the log book and examine the egg, but after a month we felt confident enough to interpret the numbers without her.

We knew which figures should be going up and how fast, and which down. We had the range of normal heart rates and blood pressures memorized. And most of all, we knew that the measure of yolk was the critical one that would lead to premature birth. The shell formed around the embryo, yolk, and the albumin, but Draco hadn't managed to produce enough yolk, which was why the egg was small. The albumin, being a water rich proteinaceous substance, provides the embryo with water, while the yolk serves as food storage. Without the full store of yolk, our child would probably not be able to make it the full year inside the egg.

The level of yolk first dipped down into the low range when our egg was only six months in. From then on we watched even more closely, Madame Thibeaux coming over daily to check for signs of distress. Then six weeks later when the yolk levels were even lower and the fetus began actually showing signs of distress, she insisted that we move the egg to the veela birthing center in France. It was what was best for our baby, so we agreed, packing up Griffin, Narcissa, and even Darwina, to go with us.

The veela birthing center was located inside a small hospital that specialized in veela. They treated only veela and those with part veela ancestry. Having heard the stories about a veela sex being born to parents with only very dilute veela ancestry, they were curious about Draco and our egg. They even marveled at our son Griffin, trying to find out if there was anything about him at all that was veela; there was, but it was miniscule.

We asked for our privacy to make them back away, because we already knew how much veela Griffin had in him. The nature of his birth still showed in his aversion to milk and milk products and the thin bone structure; sometimes we joked that he was so skinny he looked like he was made out of matchsticks. But really Madame Thibeaux said that his weight was acceptable for a four year old and that our Griffin would put on weight as he grows older. And he had almost no umbilical cord scaring, which was typical of the egg-born. But none of that was genetic, so it wouldn't be passed to his children.

Years ago Madame Thibeaux had taken cells from all three of us, to examine the genetics inside for a trace of veela genes. She confirmed that Draco had the two veela sex chromosomes, but could find no other traces of uniquely veela genes. She found one and exactly one veela Z sex chromosome in Griffin. The veela chromosome was recessive, making him the human sex, with the possibility of passing the veela sex on to his children. She found no veela genes inside of me, which was to be expected, since my mother was a muggle and the Potters weren't known to have veela in them. And because of my two human sex chromosomes, she concluded that it was impossible for one of our eggs to bare the veela sex, although one of our grandchildren could.

We stayed in France near our egg for six weeks. Narcissa, Draco, Darwina, and I took turns staying with the egg in hospital, so that one of us would always be with her; the others would sleep and stay with the four-year-old Griffin, who was too little to be allowed inside the veela hospital for visits. The moment the yolk levels dipped into the critical zone, a team of medics and healers rushed in and cut open the egg, to remove our daughter from her shell. It wasn't the only option for this type of situation, but it was the tried and tested method that had worked for generations.

Draco felt far more comfortable with this method than the alternative, which involved taking yolk from bird eggs and vanishing it to the inside of the yolk sack within the veela egg shell. It was a very delicate procedure that was prone to things going wrong, because it was difficult to control where vanished things ended up. If the yolk wasn't placed perfectly, it could damage the fetus or simply do nothing, taking up space. Then there was the fact that this did nothing about the problem of the egg shell being too small, which meant adding yolk could only prolong the inevitable for so long, before the egg would still have to be hatched prematurely.

The baby girl the medics removed from the egg was even thinner than Griffin had been. She was shorter too and less developed, closer to a regular three month old than the apparent six months her older brother had been upon hatching. She was in danger of starving to death, said the medics, who immediately established a feeding tube straight into her stomach. At all hours of the night and day they continuously pumped a liquid made from chicken yolks and water into the tube. She couldn't digest milk, because she was born of a veela not a milk drinking mammal, nor could she digest the mashed food full term veela babies eat, being premature. Thus the mixture of egg yolks and water was the only nutrient that could sustain her.

When cradling her, we were careful of the feeding tube and the fact that she couldn't hold her body up. She slept mostly, but occasionally opened her eyes and looked up at us with intelligent bright green eyes. Her hair was thick, full, and as jet black as a raven, but her face had the pointy chin, sharp cheekbones, and regal brow of a Malfoy. She was beautiful and perfect and we loved her instantly. My heart would break if anything happened to her and I could tell from the fervor Draco used when insisting that she would be fine, that he would be irreparably crushed if she wasn't.

I named her Phoenix Lily Malfoy Potter, Draco having let me name our daughter since he picked our son's name. He liked to say we chose the first name because we knew she would pull through and rise from anything. In actuality I chose Phoenix a year before, both in homage to her veela ancestry and in honor of Albus Dumbledore, whose familiar had been a phoenix. It was also unisex, which was important since there was currently no method of determining the sex of an egg before hatching. The first middle name was after my mother of course; had the child been a boy, it would've been after my father. The second middle name was Draco's last name, just as Griffin's second middle name was mine, since she bore my last name.

As Draco had predicted, Phoenix pulled through. She steadily grew and put on weight. She stayed awake for increasing periods of time and developed physically, first learning to sit up and then to roll over. And when she transitioned off of the egg yolk drip and onto mashed foods, we were allowed to take her with us to the hotel. That was nice, because we were finally able to introduce her to Griffin, who was eager to meet his baby sister.

We stayed in France for a month more so that we would be close to the veela hospital if anything happened, but nothing did. Phoenix passed her next checkup and we were told it was safe to take her home to England.

Our return to Malfoy Manor was a joyous occasion. It was made all the happier by the fact that Lucius Malfoy was soon released onto house arrest, his five years of Azkaban finally being up. Our family was complete and Grandfather Willow, Grandmother Darwina, Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, Griffin, Phoenix, and I, lived happily ever after in a house that was large even for the eight of us.

* * *

Author's Note: So there it is. I hope you liked it and that the epilogue gave you a sense of what their lives will be like.

I ask that if you have read the story and enjoyed it, to please let me know, by leaving me a review. They are much appreciated!


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